Summary
The goal of critical incident response (CIR) services is to improve the resilience of individuals while mitigating negative impacts resulting from exposure to potentially traumatic events. The primary purpose of the study was to define which CIR services are currently provided to law enforcement (LE) personnel following exposure to traumatic work events. A further objective of the study was to report what clinicians consider to be best practices regarding CIR services to law enforcement personnel. For this appreciative inquiry study, 12 employee assistance professionals (EAPs) who specialize in mental health care of LE personnel and who routinely respond to critical incidents participated in interviews to define the specific CIR services used by EAP programs. A review of literature revealed critical incident services are important to comprehensive clinical programming and that a need remains to address stress management issues in the LE population. Current critical incident literature called for evidence of program effectiveness. Results revealed that CIR services are available to employees but there is not a consensus regarding what services are viewed as most effective based on empirical evidence. The results of the study indicated evidence-based programming does not appear to be a primary practice or concern among the providers interviewed. This study expanded the knowledge base of LE-specific CIR services, but additional research is needed to continue to define and develop evidence-based CIR services.