Carrying out police duties in a dynamic and multi-faceted society is by no means an easy job. A lot of issues are extremely emotionally charged both for officers and the public. Facing unpredictable issues may even bring considerable stress to officers and their families.

In view of this, the Police College is committed to providing psychological competency training for officers so that they would master the necessary psychological knowledge and skills to deal with fellow officers and the public in a more professional manner, as well as for their long-term wellness.

Psychological Competency Training (PCT) is a three-year project jointly developed by the Police College and the Personnel Wing (Psychological Services Group), focusing on eight equally important competencies. Since 2004-05, five competency areas comprising "Conflict Management", "Victim Psychology", "Interpersonal Communication Skills", "Counselling Skills as a Police Supervisor/Colleague" and "Emotional Regulation", have been developed in partnership with local universities.

A train-the-trainer approach has been adopted for most competencies and the materials developed by universities have already been incorporated into different existing training programmes, including the Police Constable Development Course, NCO Promotion Course, Standard Criminal Investigation Course, and Junior Command Course. In addition, seminars on these psychological competencies have also been organised. All these training initiatives have received very favourable feedback.

Materials on the three remaining competencies of "Stress Management in Police Work", "Healthy Lifestyle", both in an e-learning format, and "Psychological Skills in Suspect Interviewing" will be introduced later this year as scheduled.

To enable officers to understand more about PCT, a website titled "Psychological Competency Training Resource Bank" has been created. At this website, a lot of information and training materials, such as e-Learning programmes, practical self-learning power-point files and documents, e.g. "Crowd Psychology - Self Learning Materials", and some useful internal and external links, can be found and downloaded.

"This resource bank enables officers to know exactly what PCT is all about. The contents make us understand that psychological competency is an integral part of a modern police officer," said Mr Yeung Fu-yiu, Senior Force Training Officer.

Officers may visit the website via the Learning Portal.