Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers trained in de-escalating communication with people with mental health needs

For years, the police have been receiving increasing numbers of reports of people with behaviour resulting from mental health needs. This leads to quite a few incidents. De-escalating communication may in some cases help prevent the police from having to use force and may therefore be a better way to help these persons. Basic police training devotes a certain amount of attention to this subject. The police management board has expressed the need to make officers on the beat more familiar with this complicated subject.

Bauke Koekkoek (lecturer in Behaviour resulting from Mental Health Needs, Safety and Society at the Netherlands Police Academy and crisis support service nurse) and Thijs Beckers (researcher at the Netherlands Police Academy and nurse practitioner in mental health care) were recently invited to provide training to the approximately four hundred Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers across the country. The purpose is to explain to the trainers what behaviour may result from mental health needs, to make them aware of the urgency of the problem, and to teach them de-escalating skills so they can in turn teach these skills during refresher training.

"There is certainly a need to address this", said Bauke Koekkoek. "Persons with confusing behaviour are increasingly involved in incidents. The number of cases where the police have to use force is on the increase too. Hence the urgency."

Not used to

Bauke and his colleague Thijs Beckers were invited by Comprehensive Professional Skills Training specialists for the first time in the autumn of 2023. Every year, a group of twelve trainers analyses and determines the frameworks for comprehensive professional skills training. Bauke: "In this process, they take current issues into account. They contacted me in the context of de-escalating communication and dealing with behaviour resulting from mental health needs. The questions were: What does it entail? How is this subject addressed in basic police training and how can we connect with that? I gave a presentation, which was received with enthusiasm.

We then discussed what substantive points and useful perspectives we could offer the Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers across the country. We were aware that they have limited time and are in fact mainly focused on training the use of force. De-escalation and dealing with behaviour resulting from mental health needs are not subjects they are used to."

Three components

In about fifteen meetings Bauke and Thijs provided training to groups of Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers. Bauke: "We highlighted a number of useful points from basic police training about dealing with behaviour resulting from mental health needs, and focused on three components.

• First of all, verbal communication. What kind of questions do you ask? Are they judgemental or open questions?
• Then there is non-verbal communication. How is your posture? But also: how fast and how loud do you speak? These points might seem obvious, but they can be difficult to keep in mind when you find yourself in a tense situation.’
• Most of the theoretical component was about the model that officers can use to better understand confused behaviour, helping them tailor their actions to what may be going on.

"We showed the trainers some video footage and asked them: what do you think is going on here? What questions could you ask to find out more? It is actually a lot like other police work. You have to find out what is going on, but this time the situation requires more interpretation. Is what I am witnessing purely situational? Or might the person have a mental disorder? Or did he use a lot of substances, causing him to lose his marbles? 

You want to get a first impression, so you can determine your approach. Do I handle this myself? Or should I call for assistance? There is no need to get into the complicated stuff, or to act like a therapist. But you do want to be able to assess the situation a little better. So that you are better prepared to deal with such situations and don’t always have to call on healthcare professionals. Sometimes there are only minor issues at play. So you only have to take minor action to put out the fire."

Sense of urgency

Rico Salawanej works at the Police Expertise and Support department. His team works closely with the twelve Comprehensive Professional Skills Training specialists responsible for the supplementary training of Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers across the country. "The most important goal of the professionalization days to which Bauke and Thijs contributed was developing a sense of urgency among the Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers’, said Rico. ‘The large increase in incidents with people with mental health needs calls for more attention, beginning with an interested attitude. The next step from there is developing skills.

The problem is that there are many subjects to which we should pay attention, whereas we have only 32 hours per year for the additional training of trainers. So it is far from simple."

"Bauke has a scientific outlook but is 'hands on' at the same time. I like that’, said Rico. ‘In the beginning, some trainers felt like: just give me a protocol. Then I’ll recognise the syndrome, establish which phases the person has gone through, and it’ll be fine. But this is not how it works.
The important thing is to be open to trying and understanding the other person’s behaviour, and to adapt your own behaviour accordingly. Doing so will increase your chances of success. But sometimes you pay attention, you do everything the way you’re supposed to, but things still go wrong in the end.

And sometimes you may in fact do something wrong. Maybe you were too quick to judge, or used words that were not entirely suitable. But the situation ended well anyway. I thought that was very enlightening in Bauke’s story. You should always take into account that you cannot always do everything right from the beginning."

Compliment

"The flexibility and commitment shown by Bauke and Thijs in attending fifteen professionalization days throughout the country really deserves a compliment’, says Rico. ‘We are now in the process of preparing a professionalization programme with the twelve Comprehensive Professional Skills Training specialists. They are doing this partly for themselves, in order to become more versed in this difficult subject, and partly for the trainers. We want Comprehensive Professional Skills Trainers to be fully equipped with knowledge and skills, so they in turn can provide colleagues in the street with feedback on how to act."

Important signal

Bauke: "The subject is part of basic police training, but it should be addressed again in everyday practice. We see this as the beginning of what will hopefully be long-term cooperation with the Comprehensive Professional Skills Training specialists and the larger trainers group. We will evaluate soon, but it is quite clear already that this should not be a one-off.

If we manage to get this subject properly included in Comprehensive Professional Skills Training, its status will improve. Use of force skills are important, but so are de-escalation skills. We believe this is a powerful signal, which fits the image we, as Netherlands Police, want to present and we want to invest time in it."