Police College signs MOU on research into
emotions, resilience
Police College Director Kevin Woods signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with an Honorary College Advisor, Prof Au Wing-tung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on research collaboration on January 11. This pioneering collaboration will benefit the Force's professional development in evidence-based policing and Police College's development into a centre of excellence in police training.
"This is a pioneering collaborative project in training research," Mr Woods said. "There will be more and more research collaborations with academia as evidence-based research in policing becomes more important. The experiences of overseas law enforcement agencies show empirical research helps justify better resource acquisition, enforcement actions and policy decisions, including training and development strategies."
The MOU between Police College and Prof Au of the Department of Psychology aims at examining training in positive emotions and resilience for police officers. It is expected that training in resilience would equip officers for responding to changes, stress, and challenges in a fast changing society. Positive emotions like hope, optimism and happiness, according to years of scientific research, would bring benefits in terms of health and inter-personal relationship to officers. Positive emotions and resilience training will be launched later this year, to be followed by assessment of effectiveness.
"The research partnership with the Honorary College Advisor will enhance the research capability of the Force. Moreover, the knowledge provided by the research findings would help Police College develop more effective training programmes to improve officers' physical and psychological well-being and enable them to deliver better services to the community," Mr Woods added.
Mr
Woods with Prof Au after the MOU signing ceremony