DPD Officers Work Mental Muscles With "Brain Training"
It’s being called the next frontier of fitness: brain health.
The Dallas police department will partner with the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Brain Health to help officers stay in top mental health as well.
“It’s up here,” says DPD’s Deputy Chief Jeff Cotner, tapping his head for effect. “This emotional wellness that you have to have, the ability to have that critical thinking in very dynamic situations—that is the new frontier.”
As a veteran officer, Chief Cotner knows that split-second decisions can mean life or death, compliments or controversy and a mistake can end a career. Thus on Thursday, Chief Cotner was among the DPD Command Staff now completing training in what’s being called SMART™, or Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics.
“Giving them a tool to even think about how do we reframe things that go wrong, how do we look at other perspectives, how do we start to move out of our biases,” says Jennifer Zientz, the Center’s Head of Clinical Services. “The application to this tool is endless.”
During the next 18 months, several hundred front-line officers will go through the training. Officers will work to improve decision-making, judgment and emotional management.
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Published on CBS 11 News February 23, 2017
