Challenge
Law enforcement officer safety and wellness goes beyond physical health. Supporting officer mental health and well-being is vital to the safety of officers, their department and peers, and the communities they serve. Officers struggling with physical health, sleep, nutrition, and experiences around trauma, mental health issues, or substance misuse have a lower quality of life, are less able to take care of each other in the line of duty, and are often less successful in protecting and supporting the communities they serve.
To address these issues, EDC partnered with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to develop innovative, user-friendly resources to support a broad range of officer safety and wellness needs.
Key Activities
EDC, in collaboration with the IACP, carried out the following activities:
- Developed resources to assist agencies in the development of health and wellness programs, with an emphasis on stress management, trauma, substance misuse, and grief
- Produced a series of microlearning videos focused on grief and loss, individual strategies for coping with burnout, and organizational strategies for addressing officer stress
- Designed and delivered the first-of-its-kind law enforcement agency virtual community of practice—which included urban, rural, and tribal departments—to encourage peer-to-peer sharing and group learning focused on implementing best practices in officer safety and wellness
Impact
- The comprehensive resources developed are supporting police departments in all 50 states to better meet the well-being and safety needs of their officers.
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PROJECT DIRECTOR
