Multi-Agency Police Peer Support (MAPPS) Program

Bill Walsh of the Voorhees Township Police Department (VTPD) serves as a Lieutenant overseeing the Patrol Bureau and the Department’s Health and Wellness/Peer Support Programs. Bill was impacted by two police suicides. During the same period, he was working towards attaining a master’s degree. His capstone project called for the creation of a course designed for supervisors to educate them on police stress and suicides and teach them how they can help themselves and those that they lead. The course was implemented in 2011 and continues today. Bill attended the Police Leadership graduate program at Temple University in 2016-2017. His capstone designed a holistic officer health and wellness program for police agencies. Bill’s research and program design were used in the implementation of the VTPD Officer Health and Wellness Program in late 2019, which includes automatic annual wellness check-ups with a board-certified police and public safety psychologist. The program consists of various interventions including family seminars, a multi-agency police peer support team, financial wellness, and research components. Bill has presented for government organizations and at numerous conferences including IACP conferences in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Miami. In 2019 he co-authored a chapter on early intervention systems in a peer-reviewed text on first responder wellness with Dr. Jennifer Kelly. Bill has been published in several editions of the Police Chief Magazine on community mental health and officer health and wellness programming. Bill provides consultation on best practices to agencies and also serves as a SME for the IACP/DOJ CRI-TAC, and the National Police Foundation. He also serves in a peer-review capacity for the National Institute of Justice and the IACP. In 2019, Bill was blessed to have been honored with the IACP 40 Under 40 award. He is currently working towards his second master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.

Jennifer Kelly, Ph.D., ABPP is a New Jersey licensed psychologist and board certified in Police & Public Safety Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology. Dr. Kelly’s clinical practice involves a variety of police and public safety psychological services including post-offer pre-employment psychological evaluations, fitness for duty evaluations, specialty assignment examinations, as well as employment evaluations relative to disability and accommodation. To date, she has been retained to carry out psychological services by more than 120 municipalities and public safety departments. Dr. Kelly also provides treatment to public safety personnel and conducts critical incident stress debriefings sessions. In addition, she creates and implements psychological wellness programming for public safety agencies and serves as the qualified mental health professional on a multiagency peer support team. She has published in the area of psychological treatment with public safety personnel and wellness programming within police agencies. Dr. Kelly is currently a member-at-large on the Council of Organizations in Police Psychology (COPP) and the COPP liaison to the Council of Specialties.

Samantha Rodriguez, M.S., is a fourth-year doctoral student at Nova Southeastern University’s Clinical Psychology program. She has a focus in Police Psychology and has an interest in working with law enforcement officers and other first responder populations. Throughout her time in the program, she has worked for Dr. Vincent Van Hasselt in his First Responder Research and Training Team at Nova Southeastern University, assisting in various presentations and trainings covering mental health topics for different first responder populations. She is also a member of the group ‘Nova Players’, which is a group of students from Nova’s doctoral program that utilize scenario-based trainings to help police hostage negotiators acquire active listening skills to assist persons in crisis. Her research interests include stress and resilience in law enforcement personnel.

Vincent B. Van Hasselt, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology, President's Distinguished Professor, and Director of the First Responder Research and Training Program at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Since 1995, he has served as a Reserve Police Officer with the City of Plantation, Florida Police Department where he is Training Coordinator of the Crisis Response Team, and Clinical Director of the CISM and Peer Support Teams. Dr. Van Hasselt's clinical and research interests are in the areas of crisis negotiation, critical incident stress management, Crisis Intervention Team Training, and the assessment of stress, burnout, and resilience across first responder groups, including police officers, fire rescue personnel, crime scene investigators, and emergency communication operators. Over the past several years, his work has also focused on the development and implementation of Behavioral Health and Peer Support Training for first responders. Dr. Van Hasselt previously served as a lecturer and consultant to the FBI's Behavioral Science and Crisis Negotiation Units and has been an invited instructor for the FBI National Academy's Stress Management in Law Enforcement course. Dr. Van Hasselt is currently involved in research collaborations with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the U.S. Marshals Service in the areas of sex trafficking and the evaluation of psychological well-being of first responders nationwide.