Mental health affects our job satisfaction, how we treat the public, and our relationships with everyone—coworkers, friends, and family included. Working in an ECC changes you. All too often, we forget our obligations to take care of ourselves and of each other. This is why attending a conference like the APCO Wellness Summit can make such a difference.
This year’s summit took place in Portland, Oregon, where a day and a half of presentations focused on the health of dispatchers, supervisors, and managers. I would encourage you to attend if you ever get the chance. I would suspect that you will learn from speakers whom you’ve never seen before.
Prioritizing wellness takes a lot of energy. Ask Denver 911 about their peer support project. Two of Denver’s staff, Jessica Tresch and Amber Cass, were in Portland to present their multi-year journey to get where they are today. This is one talk that you may see at other conferences. It is one of their missions to share their story with other public safety organizations.
Denver looked at their abysmal retention rate and committed to improving it. Implementing a peer support program was one of the things they used to turn things around. It took them three years, but they got it done.
Here are my takeaways from the story of Denver 911.
- Work hard to gain support from administrators (911 Directors and above), but don’t count on them. A mentoring program is part of a culture change and sometimes you have to show incremental progress and a persistent need for the program before administrators are willing to believe in your project.
- Budget is important, but there is a lot you can do before the budget is approved. Budgeted items might include overtime, training, on-call time, and data collection tools. Working through some planning activities, doing research, and gaining support internally can be done with no budget.
- Data can be a savior in the struggle to persuade administrators that it is a worthwhile project. Examples of data include retention rates, call data, including types of calls, vacant positions, historic trend of overtime budgets, etc.
- In the end, track everything you can. Find a way. Data will be your friend when administrators ask questions. It can be your saving grace when the program falters and you wonder why.
- Data doesn’t solve everything. It doesn’t replace caring for your co-worker when they are having trouble with a call. It doesn’t replace standing up and ending the gossip being flung around the room. The program is built on a team who understands the potential impact, and is trained in a way that maintains a supportive culture where people want to come to work.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel. There are trainings available and people to talk to who have been down this road before. Find them. Talk to them. Take their advice to heart.
- Success means including every dispatcher. From the moment a new hire walks in the door, they need to know where to find support. They need to know who to go to. They need to know every other person in the building has their back.
- Not everyone is a good mentor. Be ready to adjust if there are personality conflicts. This is about maintaining the integrity of the program.
- It works! When implemented carefully, a mentoring program can improve retention rates dramatically.
I struggled as a director with dispatchers who couldn’t or wouldn’t support each other. Yes, when the big events happened, it was different. Some of them couldn’t sustain that high level of empathy for their co-workers on a daily basis. That’s what a peer support program is for. It’s a strategic plan to use when you walk into the break room and find a co-worker trying to hide their tears. It’s a way for everyone to be clear on who can help and where to find them. It could be you. It could be someone else. With a peer support program, the days of wondering what to do when someone is showing signs of severe stress are over.
Want to learn more? Email KOConnell@Equature.com and I will send you contact information for people who can help you get started with your own peer support program. There is no use in waiting for a tragedy. You can get started today.