3 Tips to Help You Build Effective Wellness Systems for Your Policing Organization

Here are 3 tips and 3 questions to help you build a better wellness system for your law enforcement organization.

First let me tell you what I believe, then I’ll give you 3 tips and ask 3 questions to help you, and then I’ll ask you what you believe about police wellness.

I believe: Police wellness should NOT be a program, it should be a system!

Effective Wellness Systems should be strategic, comprehensive, specific, measurable and sustainable.

There are three reasons why most law-enforcement wellness programs aren’t making their people, healthier, safer, nor more professional… Continue reading

Try an Awe Walk

The Law Enforcement Survival Institute (LESI) is launching a series of short Resilience Building Challenges to expose you to new ideas about resilience enhancement from a group of experts within our wellness field, and specifically targeted to benefit emergency responders. So whether you want to armor your Self, build your emotional survival skills, your spiritual survival skills or just want to learn new and simple ways to add resilience building techniques to your life, we’ve got something for you. I believe that the police need to be more resilient!

Are you in?

Here is the first LESI Mini Resilience Building Challenge:

Topic: Building Resilience Using Awe

Title: Try an “Awe Walk”

Defining Awe
The Oxford Dictionary defines awe as: a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.

The Collins Dictionary says that Awe is the feeling of… Continue reading

Eric Potterat’s new book: Learned Excellence

Law Enforcement Survival Institute Associate Director Eric Potterat, PhD has just announced the pre-release of his book Learned Excellence with co-author Alan Eagle the former Managing Director, Sales and Executive Communications at Google, Inc.

Learn how to perform at your very best, from the psychologist who has advised elite military operators, Olympic medalists, big wave surfers, neurosurgeons, cliff divers, first responders, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, professional athletes and coaches, Fortune 500 business executives, and CIA analysts.

Learned Excellence is a comprehensive and practical guide to the mental disciplines of high performance, from the expert who developed the US Navy SEALs mental toughness curriculum and has worked with thousands of top athletes, elite military personnel, business executives, and first responders.

To Pre-Order Your Copy CLICK HERE

These stars perform across a wide variety of fields, but they all have something in common: when they are at work they know how to… Continue reading

Dabbling in Police Wellness

Is Your Agency Just Dabbling in Law Enforcement Wellness?

There are three reasons why most law-enforcement wellness programs aren’t making their people healthier, safer nor more professional. First, they’re not comprehensive enough. Second, they’re not doing anything more than just adding new training programs and creating more “flavor of the month” initiatives. Third, they are not investing time in their people, but rather using “band-aid” measures to try and fix complex problems.

As the public asks for police reform, I recommend… Continue reading

Heroes Behind the Badge: Sacrifice & Survival

Heroes Behind the Badge Sacrifice and Survival Cover PhotoThis week is scared in the U.S. as we celebrate National Police Week in Washington D.C. During this week every year we honor those who have fallen in the line of duty, and we work to support and assist the survivors that have been left behind.

This is a time to honor the fallen while rededicating ourselves toward improving the way we serve our communities and enhance our ability to protect our citizens and ourselves.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) “This year, we’re adding 286 officers to the walls of the memorial. The names, to be added Tuesday evening in a candlelight vigil, include those of 100 officers killed in the line of duty in 2013 and 186 fallen officers from past years.”

The United By Light campaign gives everyone, everywhere around the world, especially those who can’t make it to Washington, DC, on May 13, to see the activities of the Candlelight Vigil Ceremony by Live Stream on the internet.

Register to watch the CandleLight Vigil live stream at:
http://support.nleomf.org/site/PageNavigator/CandlelightVigilRegistration

Are You a Survivor?

If you are a survivor of a law enforcement death and are not… Continue reading

PTSD Awareness Day 2013

PTSDaware2013-200x200Today is PTSD Awareness Day and its time for those of us in law enforcement to learn more about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and take a stance on how we will preserve and maintain our mental health and resilience in the face of a very toxic career.

Today’s the day and June is PTSD Awareness Month and we encourage you to learn more about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) not only to help yourself but your peers and the family members who need you by visiting the website for the National Center for PTSD which is run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

What are you doing to raise awareness about PTSD in your agency?

They invite you to Take the STEP and Raise Awareness about PTSD

  • Learn about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
  • Challenge Beliefs
  • Explore Options
  • Reach Out

Isn’t it time that we in law enforcement take our own step toward understanding this issue and openly talking about it in our roll-calls and other agency meetings. You can download our CopsAlive Roll-Call training guide on PTSD byCLICKING HERE or keep reading to learn about the many resources being made available by the National Center for PTSD.

Rates of PTSD in law enforcement officers vary but… Continue reading