21st Century Tactical Athlete: Application of Olympic Sports Psychology Performance Enhancement Strategies to Elevate Law Enforcement Personnel

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM ET

Location: 257AB

Submitter and Speaker(s)

Stephanie Barone McKenny

Police Psychologist
IACP PPSS Executive Board
Los Angeles, California, United States

Speaker(s)

Celina Robles

Captain
Los Angeles (CA) Police Department
Los Angeles, California, United States
Rasha Gerges Shields, J.D.

Vice President
Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners
Los Angeles, California, United States

Prioritizing officer safety and wellness is imperative for the future of any department, given record-low staffing and record-high demands and scrutiny. An interdisciplinary team will discuss how law enforcement personnel can adopt concrete strategies and skills to elevate their performance in particularly stressful situations, provide exemplary multiculturally competent service to the communities they serve, and improve their own well-being. Through the application of Olympic sports psychology performance enhancement strategies and empirically validated distress tolerance skills, the panel will explain how to enhance training to better prepare their officers to respond to the demands of 21st century policing, which can, in turn, improve officer wellness, recruitment, and retention.