Organizational safety and wellness is one of the key areas of focus for me during my tenure as the IACP’s president.

We have made great strides toward understanding the need to highlight the importance of wellness for our employees. However, we are not quite where we need to be as a profession. Until we embed and prioritize wellness in policing culture, we will not be where we need to be. As we look at other professions that prioritize wellness, we can learn what that entails. Corporate senior executives and professional athletes provide examples as we work to operationalize, normalize, and create a culture of wellness. These groups consider wellness as the way to gain advantage and success. They recognize the importance of mental, physical, and financial health. These areas are all connected to developing one to be the best they can be.

Unfortunately, in our profession, we are told to live within our means, but personnel are rarely taught how to build financial stability or even wealth, nor is the importance of retirement savings clearly communicated. We only prioritize mental health after we have been exposed to traumatic events or after we break under the pressure of compounding trauma. We are encouraged to promote or take on challenging roles in our agencies but are rarely fully trained or guided on what it takes or how to fulfill those roles once we achieve them. We are told to eat well and exercise, but opportunities and resources are limited or nonexistent. If you are in an organization that has mastered all of these, you are a unicorn in the policing profession.

The 2026 IACP Officer Safety and Wellness Conference was recently held in New Orleans, Louisiana, and we had record attendance, a record number of workshops, and the most vendors ever at this conference. It is clear that the demand and desire are growing. An unfulfilled need exists. I attended the conference, and while I saw some of my peers in leadership in attendance, I was struck at how few were there. My impression is that leadership still sees this area as a “program,” not as an organizational leadership opportunity. The presentations were excellent, but leaders, while you may have had your “experts” in attendance to learn about the latest wellness efforts, you missed an important chance to move your agency forward and become a unicorn—to create a culture in your organization that builds champions in our profession.

Mentally, physically, and financially healthy employees lead to a healthy organization that will thrive. Safety for our employees and our communities is an outcome of health and wellness. Good personal choices lead to great outcomes. Thus, this becomes more than a conversation about a program to serve the members of our teams. It is a leadership tool to create safe communities.

I realize this is a seismic change in approach for a profession that believes that we hire and train the best, and they can handle all we throw at them. This reminds me of a definition of insanity I learned many years ago that frames it as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. As leaders, we must commit to doing this differently and doing it right. Start from the very first contact to build resilience in your employees. Begin with training that explains trauma and how to correctly address it. It is said that many of our employees will experience, on average, 400 to 600 traumatic events in their career compared to 3 to 4 for all others in society. Training and tools exist to prepare them for this and help them through the challenges that they will face. Normalizing mental health check-ins with a professional counselor, peer support engagement, and chaplaincy exposure will provide a landscape for success.

Physical fitness and nutrition are key to performance as well. Creating a culture of fitness includes understanding that not everyone is made for the same program. Tailoring programs to individuals will pay great dividends. Build a cadre of trainers and nutritionists in your organization to help meet these goals.

Introducing your staff to a financial planner who can simplify the understanding and importance of creating a foundation of money management and the importance of starting immediately to invest in retirement will potentially save their lives. Defined benefits for retirement are practically a thing of the past. The organization automatically withholding savings is also rare. New employees do not prioritize retirement or savings, and we must help them understand the importance of doing so immediately.

If we create a culture of taking care of our employees and their families, they will take care of the agency and the communities we serve.

Engaging or building employee coaching and mentoring programs can address the challenges of retention and succession within the agency. Again, upon entry to the agency, providing new members with the opportunities to learn from others in the organization how to be their best sets the whole team up for success.

For leaders reading this and saying, “This sounds amazing, but how do I pay for it?” This is another area where IACP resources can help navigate those waters. There are some creative ways that agencies have managed to implement some of these efforts. The IACP Organizational Safety and Wellness Section has created several resources to start you on the path forward. The CRI-TAC initiative can be a resource by providing experts in this area that can assist at no cost to your agency.

The policing profession is constantly adapting because communities consistently change. However, we have historically held norms that are slow to adjust. Organizational safety and wellness within our profession has advanced slowly for various reasons. The time is now for leadership to get serious about the value of a commitment to focus on our employees for the benefit of our organizations and our communities. If we create a culture of taking care of our employees and their families, they will take care of the agency and the communities we serve. Our employees will be healthy, happy, and prepared for the unique nature of our roles, and our communities will reap the benefits.d

Please cite as

David Rausch, “Setting Our People Up for Success,” President’s Message, Police Chief 93, no. 5 (May 2026): 6–7.