UTEP Associate Professor to Study Officer Safety Training Program
Last Updated on October 02, 2017 at 8:00 AM
Originally published October 02, 2017
By UC Staff
UTEP Communications
Jeff Rojek, Ph.D., director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior (CLHB) at The University of Texas at El Paso, has received a $107,000 subgrant from the Police Foundation to evaluate the VALOR Initiative, a nationwide officer safety and wellness training and technical assistance program.
Rojek, associate professor of criminal justice, will collaborate with the Police Foundation to evaluate the training related to the initiative across three law enforcement agency sites. The study will examine receptivity to the training; changes in knowledge and attitudes related to officer safety issues; and analyze officer safety outcomes.
The VALOR (Violence Against Law Enforcement and Ensuring Officer Resilience and Survivability) Initiative was developed in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to improve law enforcement officer safety.
The Police Foundation, an independent organization dedicated to improving policing through innovation and science, received $1.2 million from the BJA to conduct a two-year evaluation of the VALOR Initiative with UTEP, the National institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the University of South Carolina.