In August, our Executive Director had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans to attend the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) conference. The focus of the trip for NPSS was to meet and exchange ideas on police officer wellness on a national level, as well as to provide state-of-the-art psychological trauma assessments and treatments for people.
While physical fitness has always been recognized under officer wellness, more recently the field has begun to focus more on officer mental health as a major component of wellness. There also has been an increase in seeking means to address officer suicide, as national statistics have consistently shown for many years that more officers die by their own means than at the hand of a perpetrator. The reasons behind this are numerous with stress being a major contributor.
NPSS has always had a focus on first responder and military personnel wellness issues and is committed to working in this area with this organization to help to find solutions and enhance capabilities for officer wellness.