Date Presented 04/22/2023
This poster presents national survey results among jail and prison management on perceptions of stress and trauma policies and practices that fit the needs of correctional officers and worker perspectives that can further inform mental health resources.
Primary Author and Speaker: Sarah Jaworski
Additional Authors and Speakers: Lisa Jaegers
Contributing Authors: Natalie Schur, Pranali Patel, Mazen El Ghaziri, Pamela Fallon, Martin Cherniack
PURPOSE: Corrections officers (COs) are an at-risk occupational group who are disproportionately burdened in terms of fatalities from violence with high rates of non-fatal injuries from assaults and violent events (1). The purpose of this project was to learn about common practices to address stress and trauma in corrections workplaces through a national survey.
DESIGN: A participatory action research approach was used to design a national, quantitative survey.
METHOD: A National Corrections Collaborative Project Taskforce (2) informed the survey. Domains included policies and practices to gather commonly used resources at jails and prisons. COs indicated perceptions of their helpfulness and management indicated perceptions of resources fitting the needs of COs. Survey responses were analyzed with univariate descriptive analysis.
RESULTS: There were 1,371 respondents across the U.S. COs (N = 649) reported an average of 12.7% of the listed policies were helpful (e.g. reporting, debriefing), and 53.1% of middle managers (MM) (N = 542) and 64.6% of senior administrators (SA) (N = 180) reported they fit the needs of COs. For practices, an average of 8.3% of COs reported that the ten practices were helpful to their work environment; and 49.5% of MMs and 58.1% of the SAs believed these same practices fit the needs of COs.
CONCLUSION: Perspectives among COs and MM/SA are different and may indicate the need for understanding how to improve the helpfulness and fit of stress and trauma resources related to workplace safety.
IMPLICATIONS: Occupational therapy practitioners need to consider the gap in perspectives of frontline workers compared to management perspectives in critical areas of mental health, wellness, and trauma intervention in the workplace (3). There is potential for designing workplace health programs by using a participatory action approach, considering worker input, and designing safety and injury prevention interventions specific to their needs.
References
Konda, S., Reichard, A. A., Tiesman, H. M. (2012). Occupational injuries among U.S. correctional officers, 1999–2008. J Safety Res, 43:181–186.
El, Ghaziri M., Jaegers, L. A., Monteiro, C. E., Grubb, P. L., & Cherniack, M. G. (2020). Progress in Corrections Worker Health: The National Corrections Collaborative Utilizing a Total Worker Health® Strategy. J Occup Environ Med., 62(11):965–972. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000002016
Montoya-Barthelemy, A., Gibson, B. R., Lee, C. D., Bade, A. M., Butler, J. W., Smith, E., Skipworth, D., Gutekunst, J., Segula, M. N., Wicken, C., Friedman, E., Darbari, I., Menegas, S., Thatai, S., & Wheeler, L. (2021). Occupational and environmental hazards of correctional settings. J Occup Environ Med., 64(3). https://doi.org/10.1097/jom.0000000000002440
