A Safe Place to Remove Your Cape


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Having immediate peer support readily available is crucial to maintaining mental wellbeing. Current peer support programming is geared towards front-line first responders. However, there are unique and complex mental and emotional stressors that command-level staff face daily, along with sometimes more than 20 years of first-line trauma they accumulated while working in the field. Discussed during this presentation is the 66-member, cross-disciplined, Commander Level Peer Support Team - featured at many national conferences, in magazines, and on podcasts. This training program involves discussions on many topics, such as toxic leadership, suicide risk assessment, basics of CISDs, practice scenarios, and equestrian work at War Horses for Veterans.

  • The participant will be able to understand the purpose and ethical issues associated with commander-level peer support and discuss how to mitigate the boundaries and challenges by making accountable leadership decisions.
  • The participant will be able to identify laws and policies associated with confidentiality and peer support.
  • The participant will be able to identify risk factors associated with mental illness, suicide, burnout, domestic violence, and substance abuse among first responders.

Dan Davis

Lieutenant

Belton Police Department

Dan Davis I began with the Belton Missouri Police Department in January of 1994 as a corrections officer. I then became a dispatcher in March of 1994. I was promoted to Patrolman in July of 1994 and sent to the Kansas City Missouri Regional Police Academy I have served in the following specialized units during my career: Critical Incident Response Team (SWAT) Armorer Defensive Tactics Instructor Bicycle Patrol Hostage Negotiator Motorcycle Officer CIT Officer / Coordinator I moved up through the ranks of Corporal, Sergeant and was promoted to Lieutenant in March of 2018. In my current position, I am the Patrol Division commander, the jail administrator, commander of the Victim Advocate Unit, the recruiting coordinator and the public information officer. In December of 2019, I joined the Mid America Regional Council’s (MARC) command level peer support team. During my time on the team, I have been active in several critical incident stress debriefings as well as offering support to other commanders on a “one on one” basis as needed. In the spring of 2021, I had the honor of becoming the Missouri co-chair of the command level peer support team along with my Kansas cohort Captain Matthew Kelly from the Miami County Kansas Sheriff’s Department. I joined the International Association of Chiefs of Police in April of 2021 in the Public Information Officers section attending the mid-year PIO conference in Arlington, Texas.

Matthew Kelly

Captain

Miami County Sheriff's Office

I started my Law Enforcement career in 2007 with the Louisburg Kansas Police Department. I worked there for a little over 5 years as a Patrol Officer, but due to the small size of the agency, I was eager to branch out in a larger agency. In late 2012 I was hired by the Miami County, Kansas Sheriff's Office and since then I have been a Deputy assigned to Patrol, Detective, Sergeant assigned to Patrol and now Captain of Operations which consists of Patrol, Dispatch, Court Security, Investigations and Administration. Additionally I am the Commander for the Special Operations Response Team and the agency Public Information Officer. I have been the Captain for going on 4 years. Effective April 2, 2022 I will become the Undersheriff. Our agency has 87 employees with 44 of them sworn and 43 civilian. I have been a Command Level Peer Support member since 2019 after completing the Mid America Regional Council's 40-hour training. I became a Co-Chair of the Command Level Peer Support team in 2021.

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