Clarification of Roles and Guidelines
It is very important that members of peer support teams be provided with clear roles and guidelines . The IACP Police Psychological Services Section 1 maintains Peer Support Guidelines that serve as a roadmap for defining the roles of effective peer support teams and team members . Key issues to be aware of include privacy , confidentiality , the recent passage of AB-1117 2 , the standard of care , critical incidents , program logistics , role conflicts , training , and best practices for serving as a liaison with mental health professionals .
Team Maintenance
Caring for those who care for others is paramount . Compassion fatigue , the lessening of compassion in response to secondary trauma , is real and has the capacity to debilitate personnel asked to participate in group or one-on-one debriefings . As the Team Coordinator following our last critical incident , I assisted with the critical incident debriefings process . Each debriefing was chaired by a licensed clinician , as well as one or two agency peers . Along with the traditional format and groupings , the last debriefing we conducted was for team members only . This session was chaired by the same clinician who attended the other meetings . The purpose was obvious : assemble as many team members as possible , and speak amongst a friendly audience , hoping to avert compassion fatigue . As a team , we have begun to weather the storm , and ten months later , our entire unit remains intact .
The senseless murder of one of our own this year was tragic and heartbreaking . Each of us has been told that absent our Peer Support Program , the agency would have been broken , possibly beyond repair . Thanks to firm support from our administration , allied agencies , family members , and each other , our department is beginning to heal , and return to a sense of normalcy .
Utilize your most valuable asset : your people . Agency personnel already have an innate desire to help . Leverage that compassion and energy for the benefit of all who represent your department . ■
REFERENCES
1
International Association of Chiefs of Police . Peer Support Guidelines . Retrieved from https :// www . theiacp . org / sites / default / files / 2018-09 / Psych-PeerSupportGuidelines . pdf
2
California Legislative Information . Assembly Bill No . 1117 . Retrieved from https :// leginfo . legislature . ca . gov / faces / billTextClient . xhtml ? bill _ id = 201920200AB1117
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