Improving Agency Culture and Enhancing Officer Wellbeing: Steps for Implementing Comprehensive Wellness Programs

This conference workshop presentation provides guidance for law enforcement officers and agencies to develop and enhance an agency wellness program. Policing is a difficult and stressful job, with higher physical and mental health risks than many other professions. In response to the physical and mental challenges that law enforcement officers face, many agencies are beginning to provide wellness services and resources to their officers. Using IACP?s new Agency Assessment Tool and Action Planning Roadmap, attendees hear from experts in the field on steps to build a comprehensive health and wellness program. Field experts also share their own experiences in establishing officer health and wellness programming, from challenges they faced to hurdles they overcame and the lessons they learned along the way. This workshop highlights implementation science and what makes changes stick as well as the culture of wellness specifically focusing on mental health in the current climate. Viewers will leave with an action planning tool to assist in identifying next steps, the importance of those steps, and who will take the lead. The workshop also includes information on safety and wellness resources available from the IACP.

Neil Gang

Chief of Police

Pinole, California, Police Department

Police Chief Neil H. Gang has served in law enforcement for over 32 years and has been the Chief of Police for the Pinole Police Department since 2014. He is the Chair of the California Police Chiefs Association Officer Wellness and Resiliency Committee, the author of the Asher Model-7 Point Approach to a Culture of Wellness, the host of the 6th Pillar Podcast and was named Public Safety Hero of the Year by the House of representatives in 2020.

His innovative work as a law enforcement leader has been featured by the IACP in Police Chief magazine. He is the graduate of the prestigious Northwestern School of Police Staff Command, where he was both the president of the class and the recipient of the Franklin M. Kremel Award for excellence in the field of leadership.

Brett Mushatt

Commander

St. Cloud, Minnesota, Police Department

Jen Myers

Associate Director

Education Development Center

Jennifer Styles

Program Manager

IACP

Jennifer Styles is a Program Manager at the International Association of Chiefs of Police. She is an experienced criminal justice grant manager with a strong ability to translate the needs of the field into tangible resources, services, and trainings. Ms. Styles specializes in community-police relations, officer safety and wellness, pretrial justice, volunteer management, emergency preparedness, and tribal and smaller agency issues. Ms. Styles currently oversees IACP’s portfolio of officer safety and wellness work to include the Officer Safety and Wellness Symposium, National Consortium on the Prevention of Law Enforcement Suicide, Innovative Approaches to Officer Safety and Wellness, VALOR Law Enforcement Resilience Training Program, National Peer Support Program for Small and Rural Agencies, and Law Enforcement Family Wellness Training and Technical Assistance Program. 

Components visible upon registration.