Police have positive answers to stress on the beat with innovative training
Innovative training scheme uses positive psychology to make frontline officers happier and, hopefully, more effective at their jobs
Whether it's dealing with aggressive protesters, arresting criminals or reading claims that they are biased or use excessive force, the city's 30,000 police officers are never far from emotionally charged situations.
But police chiefs believe they have a solution to help those on the front line: training that makes individual officers happier.
The force is offering courses in which trainees are exhorted to derive fun from their physical drills, fight negative thoughts, and just be "thankful for the simple things in life".
The approach is drawn from a fairly new area of study known as positive psychology. It may come in particularly handy in situations like the incident in July when teacher Alpais Lam Wai-sze swore at police officers, whom she accused of bias over their handling of a Falun Gong protest.
"We are studying a new programme to specifically train officers' resilience and also positive emotions," said superintendent Cammie Leung Ka-mei, a training officer on the pilot scheme.
Since its introduction in 2010, about 200 officers at ranks from constable to chief inspector have undergone the training and the force is now studying whether it could be offered to all officers on a voluntary basis.
