Date

8-29-2025

Department

Helms School of Government

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (PhD)

Chair

Marc Weiss

Keywords

crisis intervention, school resource officer

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

School resource officers must aid students struggling with mental health issues. However, school resource officers in Florida schools may not receive adequate crisis intervention training to address mental health crises on the part of students effectively. A research gap exists regarding what factors make crisis intervention training effective or ineffective for police, what the appropriate place of police officers is within the context of schools, and how police officers perceive their crisis intervention training experience and skills relative to their readiness to respond to mental health-related incidents within schools. Therefore, the nature of crisis intervention training for school board police officers, a type of resource officer, in Florida schools reveals potential gaps in the adequacy of the training provided. Using the social cognitive theory as a framework, the purpose of this qualitative descriptive research was to gain a better understanding of the state of crisis intervention training for school resource officers and how it could be improved. To do this, questionnaires and one-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with school board police officers in Jacksonville, Florida. Questions were focused on how school resource officers in Jacksonville, Florida, perceived the adequacy of their training and whether they needed better knowledge or training to address student mental health crises. Once data were collected, they were analyzed using thematic analysis, and results were used to address the research questions. Results were expected to inform current crisis intervention training among officers in Jacksonville, Florida.

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