CPD and reflective practice: Improving investigations and wellbeing in rape and serious sexual offences

Posted on by

by Dr Nicky Miller, Dr Emma Williams and Richard Harding of the Open University’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning

Learning in policing should be continuous, iterative and lifelong, taking place throughout the career journey of a police officer or member of police staff.

While many of the problems facing policing are complex, contested and wicked, it operates in a constantly changing field, which is not static and unidimensional but complex, dynamic and often transient.
This means that knowledge resources, accessed via a variety of different methods and means, are both critical and central to the continued development of practice, effectiveness and the service delivered to the publics that policing serves.

These different knowledge resources might involve research evidence, policy developments, legislative change, and data analytics to mention but a few. However, what are rarely systematically captured, critically evaluated and shared are reflections on practice and experiences as a method to enable learning and improvement.

Given the extensive knowledge and experience held by officers, standardising its organisational capture could be considered in the drive to improve efficiency.

Reflective practice and RASSO

Reflective practice is more than simply looking back on an event. Reviewing retrospectively is the first step on the path to development. It is about understanding our actions, our current levels of knowledge, and our existing skill set. It is the ability to recognise gaps or deficits and then identify approaches to remedy any issues and address shortcomings.

Reflecting on experiences, both negative and positive, offers a channel for individual, team, and organisational development, all of which are central to the creation of an effective learning environment and subsequently organisational improvement.

The Centre for Police Research and Learning (CPRL) is currently involved in Project Soteria Bluestone, a Home Office-funded project exploring the investigation of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO).

The pillar of work CPRL is leading on is examining ‘learning and development and officer wellbeing’. There are several factors attached to this pillar of work, but one of the strongest themes emerging from the work to date is the importance of reflective practice as a form of continuous professional development and iterative learning for those involved in investigating RASSO.

In this short piece we will draw on our work in Avon and Somerset Police to highlight the potential of reflective practice to improve the investigation of RASSO and access to justice for victims of these crimes.
Given the extreme complexity involved in the investigation of RASSO cases reported to the police, iterative learning, the critical assessment of practice and the establishment of feedback loops into learning cycles is essential.

While we would always advocate specialism through the delivery of specialist knowledge to officers that investigate these highly complex crimes, to date in our Bluestone work, we have predominantly seen didactic approaches to learning, a limited application of learning into practice and options for CPD, and no dedicated time for reflective practice and critical thinking about decisions made or the application of learning for the purposes of creating further personal and professional learning.

Improved service delivery and wellbeing

Officers we spoke to provided a clear narrative about the benefits of such reflective approaches more specifically from both a learning and wellbeing perspective.

The wider benefits of reflective practice per se, but particularly in the context of RASSO, link to the potential improvement to the service delivered to victims and survivors – and more broadly the quality of investigations as they move through the criminal justice system – as well as officer wellbeing.

Furthermore, integrating reflective practices at the heart of operational and learning activities offers individuals and organisations the opportunity to use these reflections on what worked well and what did not to create more iterative approaches to learning.

Such methods would facilitate the integration of lessons learned into a more effective learning cycle, and help to identify core areas for focused self-directed and organisationally provided CPD sessions.

Such learning might also provide examples of cases to support more blended learning approaches which explore ‘real’ cases to better connect theory and practice using learning content that resonates with practitioners in a more applied way.

Finally promising or innovative ideas that help to improve the delivery of a professional investigations for the victim could be shared.

Transformational change

By having key reflection points and dedicated reflection time within the process of an investigation strategy or case review, certain assumptions and regular patterns of thoughts and behaviours that can adversely shape thinking, decisions, actions and outcomes can be challenged.

In a crime type that involves such high levels of attrition at the police investigative stage of the criminal justice system these challenges are clearly required if we really hope to achieve transformational change in this space.
In organisations that are risk averse, admitting failure can be challenging. Organisations have a responsibility to allow for and provide a safe space for officers to talk through untoward outcomes, mistakes and perceived failures, in order to move forward and improve outcomes for victims and survivors of RASSO.
We are cognisant of the fact that officers are overworked, demand is high, and time is limited for reflective processes. However, the gains associated with building this into an investigation process are key to investigative effectiveness, officer competence and confidence, access to justice, and organisational health.

A powerful tool

Our research has found clear links between the wellbeing of personnel involved in RASSO investigations and their levels of professional competence, which highlights the critical roles that both formal and informal learning play in creating these.

Critical questions focused on case and victim needs, learning gaps, officers’ own wellbeing, victim/survivor needs and how these factors interact with organisational and wider CJS factors are worthy of ongoing contemplation and reflection in order to iteratively understand and adjust systems, cultures and approaches from a more whole systems perspective.

There was a desire for more time to reflect on decisions made and increase learning from the officers; therefore we suggest that embedding reflective practice more centrally in both investigative and learning practice is a powerful tool to achieve this aim.

Policing already employs forms of reflective practice in certain disciplines – for example, firearms operational debriefs – but the practice is not widespread or instinctive.

Avon and Somerset Police, led by their Chief Constable, Sarah Crew, have started this journey by implementing a new investigative strategy developed by our colleagues in Bluestone, Dr Kari Davies and Professor Miranda Horwath.

This strategy features reflective practice at the centre. We believe that this process will link to ‘on the job’ professional development, and offers further learning across teams and the wider organisation in the longer term.

Ultimately, in this context the police are learning to ask new and different questions and to grapple with the challenges of how to be better at delivering outcomes for victims and survivors of RASSO.

From PC to HE

Posted on by

After twenty years as a police officer, most recently in what has felt like a lottery- winning role as a new-recruit trainer within the Learning and Development Department, I would never have imagined that PC 3057 would contemplate a secondment within Higher Education. Yet, as a module team member within the Policing Organisation and Practice (POP) department at the Open University (OU), I write this post, not from what was my comfort- zone of classroom L5 at Police Headquarters, but from seat L5 on the train, as I return from a two- day trip to campus.

Reflecting on an earlier exercise regarding the POP social media strategy, I ponder how little I knew about the OU before I applied, and whether I would even have pursued such an opportunity, had it not popped up in front of me on the force intranet. The answer is a resounding ‘no’! I joined the police to be an operational officer and have never applied for anything else in the last 20 years, except for my highly – prized job in training, and there I was content. Furthermore, social media and police officers traditionally were never a good mix; until now this has been my stock answer for non-engagement.

Drawn in by the advert for a secondment to the OU as a police lecturer, I subconsciously ticked off the criteria, feeling excited about the various aspects of the role, some of which were areas that I had identified and hoped to develop one day. I appeared to fit the bill; pardon the pun! Since this was a secondment opportunity open to 24 partner forces, I considered the fact that I even got to the interview stage a huge personal achievement. With just 24 hours to prepare, GCSE results day and a family holiday putting paid to any hope of my usual meticulous preparation, I set out on a new and exciting journey with the OU. The ‘five P’s of preparation’ that I instil in my students soon paled into insignificance, as I was offered a nine-month secondment…And then I panicked! The imposter syndrome I had suffered during previous encounters with higher education, was back with a vengeance, and even the mere thought of temporarily leaving the police felt like an utterly outrageous prospect.

But, as stated by Richard Branson (in a very non-academic quote), ‘it’s only by being bold that you get anywhere’, and so here I am months later, having had two fabulous days at the OU campus in Milton Keynes. I’m buzzing with excitement and positivity, as I reflect on the experience so far and consider my future.

The role allows me to work from home, affording me priceless benefits as a working mother of two. The return to once- a- month attendance on campus, however, has enabled me to meet face-to-face with the amazing team of talented academics and practitioners from across the country, whom I’ve got to know ‘virtually’ in recent months. Each one of them has a fascinating background, their own unique experiences, and areas of research interest.

As I’ve learnt more about the OU, I’ve been consistently impressed by the rigour involved in producing and presenting the PCDA programme. The expertise involved at each stage is phenomenal, incorporating many layers of quality assurance. Collaboration with other specialist departments enables the central academics to produce and deliver a high-quality programme of study whilst providing outstanding support to police apprentices.

From a personal perspective, I have found my knowledge, skills, and experience to have been truly valued and my output thoroughly appreciated. I completely underestimated the value of my police officer skill set and it’s been a privilege to share what the head of POP, Jennifer Norman recently described as an ‘invaluable practitioner insight’, with such a talented, forward thinking, and positive group of colleagues. I must admit, I have also enjoyed the use of a very nice laptop, and the mini-Cornish hamper sent at Christmas was an unexpected treat.

Austerity and a selection of age-related injuries in recent years (and more recently my battles with Microsoft Teams) have caused me angst; at times I’ve even questioned my future in the police. This experience has given me a new perspective and I feel genuinely excited about where the journey will take me.

I came to the OU expecting that nine months later, I would take away with me a tangible product, a piece of research perhaps, or a study of some sort, that I would have completed during my secondment, but it will be much more than that. I have gained a far deeper understanding of many aspects of higher education than I could have imagined in such a short time; invaluable considering that three years ago, many of us within the training department had never stepped foot in a university.

Furthermore, my interactions with research colleagues and the Centre for Police Research and Learning (CPRL) have given me an appetite to engage with research; something which I feared when I first set foot in higher education. I have been fascinated by the various research articles and presentations that I’ve been exposed to, and I genuinely believe that this insight will enable me to take a more evidence-based approach to problem solving and decision-making in both my police work and my teaching.

The OU mission is to be open to all and this has certainly been demonstrated in my case. I may not have had all the desirable academic qualifications for my role, but the experience and potential of PC 3057 were recognised, and I was given a chance to step out of L5. I only wish I hadn’t waited for this life-changing opportunity to present itself to me; if I hadn’t, I’d be well on my way to a PhD by now, studied through the OU of course!

Wellbeing and work: it’s about time

Posted on by

by Dr SJ Lennie, Lecturer in Policing Organisation and Practice at The Open University

I am a lecturer and researcher at the Open University and as an ex-police officer I care deeply about the mental health of the police, and this is where the majority of my research is focussed. I am also passionate about the wider role of organisational culture in employee wellbeing, and though I welcome the more recent focus on mental health within society and business, I am increasingly frustrated by what I see as organisation’s tokenistic attitude to wellbeing.

Though we may feel we have moved on from the obligatory fruit basket by the water cooler approach to mental health, fundamentally not much has changed for the employee.  A recent article by Cholteeva (2022) identifies a third of organisations as ‘wellbeing washing’, where organisations are publicly supporting mental health, but not supporting employees internally or through action.

Wellbeing is not something that can be addressed via posting on social media, or an event held at head office on a specified day a year; it is not enough to offer counselling or train people in mental health first aid (though these are good things) – organisations have a responsibility to prevent mental ill-health through work, and this means threading wellbeing and a genuine concern for employee mental health in all policy and procedure.  To quote the Health and Safety Executive (no date):

‘Employers have a legal duty to protect workers from stress at work by doing a risk assessment and acting on it.’

The key word for me here is protect. It’s about not making people ill in the first place and a lot of this is about giving people time and space to do the things that keep them well, also known as self-care.  Though many organisations espouse a flexible and accommodating operating model, an employee’s ability to practice self-care is often dependent on their workload and organisational culture, and both are often limiting, leading to an overworked and stressed workforce. The irony is that the more stressed people are, the less productive they are too (LeBlanc, 2009).

The Health and Safety Executive defines stress as the ‘adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’ (HSE, no date).  Physiologically stress is understood as any stimuli that increases arousal within the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and this is key to our physical and psychological health (Ziegler, 2012).

The ANS consists of the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).  It is the SNS that activates in response to both physical and psychological stress and is more commonly known as the fight or flight response. If, for example, you are facing a threat and need to respond, the SNS will quickly mobilize your body to take action: adrenaline and cortisol flood the body, raising your heart rate and blood pressure, dilating pupils and pumping muscles, priming you to meet that threat. As the original intention of the SNS response is to survive a short-term threat, long term health regulation such as the digestive and immune system shut down.

Once the threat has passed, the PNS will then start to dampen these responses, slowly returning your body to its normal, resting state.  This is why the PNS is know as ‘rest and digest’: literally the engagement of the digestive system, the body calms down, the heart rate reduces as less chemicals are circulating the system, energy is conversed to be used later, the immune system is able to act and cognitive functioning is engaged (Tindle and Tadi, 2021).

These two systems work in conjunction to manage the body’s responses depending upon the situation and need. Chronic stress occurs when the body experiences stressors with such frequency or intensity that the autonomic nervous system does not have an adequate chance to activate the relaxation response on a regular basis. This means that the body remains in a constant state of physiological arousal.  Chronic stress can lead to an impairment of cognitive functioning, and lead to mental ill-health such as anxiety and depression. Chronic stress can also lead cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, autoimmune diseases, upper respiratory infections (URIs), and poorer wound healing (Cohen et al., 2012; Sawar et al., 2021).

Let’s focus in here: stress also affects cognitive performance.  The brain becomes focused on the immediate here and now and the access of information from multiple sources and memory is restricted, and consequently stress effects decision making and effectiveness on tasks that require divided processing.  Chronic stress is not good for productivity (LeBlanc, 2009).

However, ‘pressure and workload’ are common stresses within organisations with relentless workloads and increasing expectations dominating culture (Cholteeva, 2022). More and more employees are struggling to switch off, or switch to their PNS.  Organisations have a responsibility to not only reduce the stress of the workforce but to actively support them to rest and digest, and it is not only a protective action in regards employee mental and physical health, cognitive shut down is key to productivity.

The steps are simple, we know that yoga and meditation engage the PNS (Kumar et al., 2021) but as subjective as stress is, so is wellbeing and each employee needs the space and support to find out what works for them and time to engage in activities in a meaningful way, without the barriers of shame, guilt or fear.

But this takes time, and the true question is: are organisations truly willing to invest in their employees and give them time and space and the freedom from the pressure and demand of a punitive workload to enable themselves to be well?  Too often wellbeing and good mental health are seen as the responsibility of the individual, but it is actually the gift of the organisation. The gift of time.

 

References

LeBlanc, V. R. (2009). The effects of acute stress on performance: implications for health professions education. Academic Medicine, 84(10), S25-S33.

Ziegler, M. G. (2012). Psychological stress and the autonomic nervous system. In Primer on the autonomic nervous system (pp. 291-293). Academic Press.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) (Not Date) Work Related Stress and How to Manage It. [available at https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/overview.htm Accessed on: 28th October 2022.

Kumar, S., Kumar, B., Kumari, R., & Kumari, M. Impact of Yoga on the Human Body’s Parasympathetic Nervous System.

Tindle, J., & Tadi, P. (2021). Neuroanatomy, parasympathetic nervous system. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.

Tafet, G.E. (2022) Neuroscience of Stress : From Neurobiology to Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral Sciences. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG.

Golkar, A., Johansson, E., Kasahara, M., Osika, W., Perski, A., & Savic, I. (2014). The influence of work-related chronic stress on the regulation of emotion and on functional connectivity in the brain. PloS one, 9(9), e104550.

Cohen, S., Janicki-Deverts, D., Doyle, W. J., Miller, G. E., Frank, E., Rabin, B. S., & Turner, R. B. (2012). Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(16), 5995-5999.

Huang, Jie; Wang, Yansong; You, Xuqun (2016-12-01). “The Job Demands-Resources Model and Job Burnout: The Mediating Role of Personal Resources”. Current Psychology. 35 (4): 562–569. doi:10.1007/s12144-015-9321-2. ISSN 1046-1310.

Xanthopoulou, D., A. B. Bakker, E. Demerouti and W. B. Schaufeli (2007). “The role of personal resources in the job demands-resources model.” International journal of stress management 14(2)

Cholteeva, Y. (2022) “More than a third of businesses are ‘wellbeing washing’, study shows.’ People Management. Accessed at: https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1803077/third-businesses-wellbeing-washing-study-shows Accessed on: 30th October 2022.

Facing the future: Police learning in the metaverse

Image

by Simon Hull, Lecturer in Work Based Learning at The Open University

There’s always a lot of hype surrounding new technology, how it will work and evolve and often accompanied by claims as to how it will improve our lives. But one vision of our digital future has received increasing exposure in the popular press in recent times that doesn’t yet appear to be fading away: the metaverse.

I’m intrigued by the metaverse. I’ve long since had an interest with virtual reality (VR) and its application to learning in work-based settings, not least operational policing. Indeed, The Open University has made great strides into teaching with VR through the Open Justice court room application, in which learners can explore a court building and learn about how it functions. But the metaverse takes VR several steps further, potentially opening up new avenues for immersive police education and training.

Whilst many people may be new to the term, the metaverse is not a new concept. The idea was first introduced by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 sci-fi novel called Snow Crash. Stephenson envisaged a digital 3D world called the Metaverse that runs parallel to our own and where its real-life users have avatars that carry out their day-to-day lives in virtual reality. More recently, Ernest Cline’s novel (and subsequent Steven Spielberg movie) Ready Player One depicted a type of metaverse in which society worked, studied and played. The term then gained publicity in 2021 when Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the company was being renamed Meta and would focus upon building ‘3D spaces in the metaverse will let you socialize, learn, collaborate and play’ (Meta, no date).

Academic discussion around the implications for using the metaverse in education is not a new concept (Tlili et al., 2022) and there have been many attempts to define what the metaverse is. Mystakidis (2022, pp. 486) defines it as ‘the post-reality universe, a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects and people such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)’.

This is quite a mouthful, but many people will be drawn to the idea of existing in a shared virtual world where they can live and work together, building communities that thrive and challenge us just as any other does.

As Mystakidis suggests, the metaverse isn’t really one technology. In 2006, a research body called the Acceleration Studies Foundation (ASF), set out a roadmap in which 4 types of metaverse were conceived, combining real life and virtual reality.

• Augmented Reality can be seen in games such as Pokemon Go and head-up displays (HUD) found in some cars

• Lifelogging, where people capture and share aspects of their daily life through technology is ubiquitous via applications such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and also through wearable technology like the Apple Watch

• Mirror Worlds such as Google Maps and Google Earth reflect the real world but add in additional layers of information

• Virtual Reality can be seen in cases including Roblox and Minecraft (Kye et al, 2021).

Howell (2022) links these four concepts to how the metaverse could be used in education, picking out VR as being a crucial aspect in the application of the metaverse in educational settings and it’s VR that many people picture when they think of the metaverse.

It’s also with VR that my own intrigue around how the metaverse could be utilised in police learning is tweaked. VR already allows people to train in unfamiliar environments, becoming proficient in using tools and dealing with situations that may be dangerous, complicated or costly in real-life (think surgeons performing a life-saving operation or firefighters searching a blazing building). The metaverse takes this concept and allows multiple users to exist and collaborate in the same VR world.

I wonder, could this approach be applied to policing?

Communication is a key aspect of policing, not least amongst internal staff. By training together in the metaverse, greater understanding could be achieved and collaborative methods explored, accelerating learning opportunities and providing rich educational environments. For example, rather than training individuals to secure and investigate a crime scene, real-world mimicking simulations could be created in which response officers attend, talk to victims and witnesses, integrate and work with colleagues from specialist units and brief supervisors of their actions. They can also build knowledge as well as skills, learning about the forensic qualities of different materials and objects as they encounter them. Team de-briefings can be held and the scenario could be carried through the full investigation cycle, ending up presenting evidence in court.

Other potential uses could include where police officers and staff  practice conversations that they may undertake in the workplace that are relatively infrequent but that have very high-stakes when they do, such as delivering a death message, talking to a victim of domestic abuse or conducting a disclosure briefing to a  defence solicitor in a custody suite. Learners could learn about psychology and criminology as they walk through crime case studies. Metaverse technology will give a safe space to acquire knowledge, practice skills and discuss the outcomes with colleagues, delivered efficiently without the need for lengthy abstractions from duties.

Of course, there are significant challenges attached to the development of the metaverse and its application to education. Data security, regulation (who will police the metaverse? That’s another question), inequality in access to educational opportunities, and costs (headsets and software development are expensive) (Davis, 2022) are all relevant and could lead to a less than enthusiastic take-up by the public services.

The effect on learners’ mental health through being detached from the real world should not be overlooked. In the metaverse, people can present themselves as they wish to be seen, rather than how they actually are, and lines between the virtual and real worlds may become blurred (Kye et al, 2021). Protecting the welfare of learners will therefore become increasingly valid as opportunities to exist in the metaverse increase.

So, is the metaverse a fad or is it really the next big thing in online technology? Meta are by no means the only company to be investing in this brave new world. Gaming company Roblox already has a significant foothold in the metaverse and Microsoft and Fortnite, amongst others, are developing the technology. The metaverse has the potential to impact upon all of our lives; whether it does so in police learning, virtually or in reality, remains to be seen.

References

Davis, L (2022). How the Metaverse Is Shaping the Future of Education. Available at: https://metapress.com/how-the-metaverse-is-shaping-the-future-of-education/. (Accessed: 6 May 2022).

Howell, J. (2022) Metaverse For Education – How Will The Metaverse Change Education?. Available at: https://101blockchains.com/metaverse-for-education/ (Accessed: 6 May 2022).

Bokyung, K., Nara, H., Eunji, E., Yeonjeong, P. and Soyoung, J. (2021). ‘Educational applications of metaverse: possibilities and limitations’, Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions. 18(32). Available at: doi:10.3352/jeehp.2021.18.32 (Accessed: 8 July 2022).

Meta (no date) Connection is evolving and so are we. Available at: https://about.facebook.com/meta/ (Accessed: 6 May 2022).

Mystakidis, S. (2022). ‘Metaverse’ Encyclopedia 2(1), pp. 486-497. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010031 (Accessed: 8 July 2022).

Tlili, A., Huang, R., Boulus, S., Liu, D., Zhao, J, Hosny Saleh Metwally, A., Wang, H., Denden, M., Bozkurt, A., Lee, L-H.,  Beyoglu, D., Altinay, F., Sharma, R.C., Altinay, Z., Li, Z., Liu, J., Ahmad, F., Hu, Y., Salha, S., Abed, M., & Burgos, D. (2022). ‘Is Metaverse in education a blessing or a curse: a combined content and bibliometric analysis’, Smart Learning Environments 9 (24). Available at: Is Metaverse in education a blessing or a curse: a combined content and bibliometric analysis | Smart Learning Environments | Full Text (springeropen.com) (Accessed 25 July 2022).