Safe Call Now® and Harford County: Employee Development, Wellness and Peer Support

Safe Call Now®'s Captain Brian Nanavaty

Just last week Safe Call Now® President and Founder Sean Riley and Director of Curriculum and Training IMPD Captain Brian Nanavaty trekked to Maryland to present Emotional Body Armor and the Bulletproof Administrator at training hosted by the Harford County, Maryland Sheriff’s Office. Invited and participating were local, state and federal law enforcement, fire service, EMS, federal, state and local human resources officials and local prosecutor’s office.  

Harford County Sheriff’s Lt. Mark “Junk” Junkerman opened with a welcome and a thank you to his agency leadership for having the foresight to bring the unique and innovative training to the region. Sean Riley next gave a thorough introduction into his background and what experiences prompted him to found Safe Call Now®. Riley explained the founding and the mission of Safe Call Now® and how the Safe Call Now® 24 hour toll free confidential crisis hotline and referral network was created and how it is maintained by a dedicated group of trained and experienced volunteer Peer Advocates.

Captain Brian Nanavaty, a 30 year veteran of local law enforcement (Indianapolis PD) followed Riley with a discussion of the development and wellness program he created that partnered his agency with its 1600 officers to promote healthy personal lives and careers from the first day of hire. Topics addressed were educational programs and strategies aimed at new hires and veteran employees that identify potential destructive paths and behaviors and how to develop resources to reduce the numbers of employees experiencing personal and professional crisis.

Proactive employee development program education was followed by a discussion of agency wellness and peer programs. While some public agencies have early intervention programs- most do not. Many public agencies do however have peer support programs. Peer support programs are staffed by very dedicated people who give time and support to fellow employees in times of crisis and trauma.   

Some of the pitfalls of peer support programs that were identified during the training were the lack of support by agencies for peer support programs.  Many support programs are not formalized by the agency. They have no budget and members receive no regular training or compensation for time spent engaged in peer counseling. Very few peer support programs have identified internal and external professional resources that complement peer counseling by addressing long term crisis i.e., relationship, financial, addictive issues, self-harm, behaviors, etc. Most agencies also have no defined protocol for pairing employees in crisis with professional resources to get them healthy. 

From a unit standpoint, peer support teams that fail to have agency support, resources, and/or protocols are susceptible to member burnout or risk the long term health of their peer support team members. Many teams also find that the same peer support members respond to every incident while others fail to show unless convenient for them. One of the realities of peer support is that crisis does not maintain a regular, convenient schedule.   Members who are not willing to maintain their status need to be weeded out. 

The training day concluded with strategies for introducing new ideas and complimenting current agency programs that help agencies and employees maintain healthy habits and long term success. Those individuals who attended left with an understanding of the Safe Call Now® proactive and reactive methodologies for addressing and resolving peer crisis. Congratulations to the Harford County Sheriff’s Office who sponsored the day’s training and to those agencies and the managers, supervisors and peer employees who attended.