Photo courtesy of Dallas Police Department, Texas.

The topic of officer mental health is, without question, receiving more attention than ever before in policing. This attention to such a critical issue is overdue and well deserved. Still, despite the constant discourse, it can be difficult for police leaders to know where to start when it comes to building or providing true wellness support for their officers and staff. Initiatives, programs, and products are springing up in agencies across the globe to address this dire need, but are they really strong enough to change the generations of policing culture that has contributed to the problem? Are these efforts enough to finally influence and guide police professionals to sustainable mental health? Do these solutions truly provide the support needed to keep officers from turning to the unhealthy coping techniques they’ve resorted to in the past?

In the fall of 2021, the Dallas, Texas, Police Department (DPD) tackled these questions after the command staff held multiple disciplinary hearings that led to officer terminations for misconduct and alcohol-related issues.

As a result, DPD began reviewing all its available alcohol and mental health support resources to determine if they were being utilized and what the overall state of wellness was in the department.

Over the course of three months, focus groups were conducted throughout the police department to get feedback and gather information from officers. The focus groups included patrol officers, investigative detectives, special operations, and command staff group discussions.

Simply put, the findings were not encouraging. Some officers expressed bottled-up frustrations due to a lack of support in the past, and other employees voiced concerns about previous inadequate efforts to help officers heal or the historical difficulty of understanding the burdens carried by police officers.

Many DPD employees mentioned the source of their frustrations resulting from the July 7, 2016, ambush where 12 officers were shot and 5 killed during a downtown protest. Other officers shared concerns about the demands of the job, as well as a perceived lack of support or trust from department leadership and its resources. The discussions revealed layers upon layers of suppressed frustration, with many officers doubtful that an attempt to better support their mental health would result in any significant actions by the department.

In February 2022, DPD decided to develop a full-time Wellness Unit to better support its employees and began identifying the staffing needs to move forward.

In March 2022, a core group of officers came together to review all the information gathered during the focus group discussions, including assessing what resources were needed to better support DPD employees, and to begin mapping out the model that would eventually become the Dallas Police Wellness Unit.

By May 2022, the department identified five officers, one sergeant, and a lieutenant who would lead the new DPD full-time Wellness Unit. The model the core group developed was heavily based on the need to reestablish trust and address the hardened culture that seemed to have settled in at DPD. Although the department had long offered peer support and access to police psychologists and police chaplains, these programs were not broadly supported or utilized by the rank and file. The DPD Wellness Unit would build a proactive approach to reach officers with empathy, compassion, and support prior to the officers being involved in a crisis.

Five-Pronged Approach to Wellness

The Wellness Unit is structured around a multipronged approach to wellness that includes the DPD’s flagship program called “Checkpoints.” Checkpoints are designed to check on officers each time they respond to a call the department deems potentially unhealthy. These are the calls that have previously been looked at as “routine” or “just part of the job,” including calls like homicides, suicides, and fatal crashes.

The checkpoint includes an unsolicited call and show of support from a designated checkpoint officer. The checkpoint officer’s proactive contact with the employee is designed to offer empathy, compassion, support, and resources, which includes encouraging professional counseling or therapy as part of an overall healthier approach to mental wellness. During these checkpoint contacts, the opportunity to connect with a mentor and develop a network of support within the DPD is also created.

“It’s cops taking care of cops, and because of that connection, it’s having results.”

Checkpoint officers are a team of trained, well-respected officers who have distinguished themselves throughout their career. These are the officers others look up to and want to talk to and who are willing to help mentor and guide their police department colleagues to improved mental health.

While Checkpoints is the flagship program, DPD has built a comprehensive approach around the Checkpoints program that includes

• a full-time staffed unit composed of one lieutenant, one sergeant, and five officers;
• a quarterly survey to gauge department employees’ needs and solicit feedback on the wellness program;
• a digital online newsletter called the Officer Wellness and Longevity Newsletter, the OWL, that highlights employees who have strong mental health routines and gives contact information for all department resources;
• education and training throughout an employee’s career, including basic academy training, in-service training, and training for newly promoted officers; and
• family outreach, which includes providing training, resources, and support to all family members of police department employees.

Overall, the DPD wellness program is designed to bring proactive support to all DPD employees. A heavy emphasis is being placed on proactivity because previous models of support within police organizations were initiated only after an officer was involved in a critical incident or traumatic event, which could easily lead to a mental health crisis immediately after the incident. This can no longer be the standard in today’s world of policing. The goal should always be to help police employees before they are dealing with a crisis.

The Cumulative Effect of Emotional Trauma

Each area of focus within the DPD’s Wellness Unit was designed to address the cumulative effect of emotional trauma. This type of emotional trauma is an area of focus that is often not discussed or is dismissed as not worthy of warranting support or resources. Layers upon layers of emotional trauma throughout an officer’s career from “small” or “minor” incidents can have an even greater impact on a person’s mental wellness than one major critical incident. The profession’s failure to consider this reality forces officers to bury any discomfort or negative emotions they may have felt after a call for service just to keep up with their peers and not look inferior. This response can leave officers with unsettled feelings that result in emotional scars. The lack of proper awareness of this cumulative effect, combined with the inconvenience of accessing resources, leaves officers with thoughts and memories that may be taking a larger toll on police employees than was previously understood. This likely contributes to the stigma around suicide, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and divorce that have plagued the profession for years.

Alcohol Rehabilitation Procedure

Alcohol dependency and abuse have been challenges for some officers and staff in policing for many years. Driving while intoxicated and other alcohol-related incidents have cost police officers their reputations and careers and damaged departments’ credibility in the communities they serve. While there are no excuses for breaking the law, there is a strong indication that alcohol has become a source of coping, escape, or solace to quiet the emotional trauma that lingers in the minds of many law enforcement officers. Recognizing this problem, the DPD created an alcohol rehabilitation procedure (ARP) that offers those who come forward (sworn or non-sworn) prior to being involved in an alcohol-related incident the opportunity to receive 30 days of paid leave to attend an inpatient alcohol rehabilitation treatment center. DPD’s Wellness Unit has identified treatment centers throughout the state and region that specialize in treating first responders. Officers who come forward receive assistance from the Wellness Unit with the on-boarding process, insurance confirmation, and transportation to the inpatient facility. The Wellness Unit has also identified several nonprofit groups that will assist officers in covering the deductible cost so that an officer experiences no out-of-pocket expenses for attending the program. Since the inception of the program, eight officers have entered and completed the 30-day program. One of the officers who recently completed the ARP gave a heart-wrenching testimonial for the Assist the Officer Foundation’s Bridging the Divide podcast in December 2022.

The OWL Newsletter

Owls represent wisdom, knowledge, and change, which are all characteristics of what those in law enforcement aim to embody. As part of the organic development and commitment to the DPD’s new Wellness Unit, the OWL logo was designed and sketched by DPD’s very own sketch artist. The newsletter itself is built by DPD officers, and it’s designed to highlight officers within DPD who exemplify officer wellness. Each month, a different DPD officer is selected to share his or her stories of encouragement, support, and health strategies with the department. The newsletter also aims to be a one-stop online resource guide officers can use to find help any time they need. The newsletter and the DPD Wellness Unit are homegrown. It’s cops taking care of cops, and because of that connection, it’s having results.

Data and Early Results

The DPD Wellness Unit has been operational since July 2022. The unit and its checkpoint officers conducted more than 800 checkpoints in the first six months following its inception, and 11 percent of the officers who received outreach during that time frame responded with interest in mental health and wellness services or resources. In the first three months of 2023, checkpoint officers conducted 600 checkpoints with 14 percent of the officers responding with requests for or expressing interest in resources. Judging by the number of officers and employees who have followed up with the Wellness Unit and checkpoint officers, employees are feeling better about discussing wellness within DPD. This feedback is extraordinary when compared to initiatives of this type in the past and includes comments such as “Please tell the chief of police he saved my life,” and the initiative has encouraged officers to come forward to tell their own personal stories of struggle, therapy, and recovery in the OWL newsletter.

Transferable Best Practices

While every police department is unique and what works for one agency might not be what’s best for another, DPD has developed a few first considerations and best practices that can have a big impact on building a wellness program.

• Review behaviors and conduct within the agency for indications of emotional and trauma fatigue.
• Hold focus groups to meet with officers and do an overall assessment of officers’ needs.
• Assess resources available through the agency and how they are being utilized.
• Start to identify influential members of the agency and look for change agents. These informal leaders will need to take ownership of the program for it to succeed.

Understanding the rate of “harmful” incidents that an agency’s personnel are exposed to is also a good first step. Pulling those data and taking a good look at what officers are seeing, hearing, and responding to each day and over the course of the year provides an eye-opening perspective. The profession has also often looked at resilience as a fixed characteristic rather than considering the possibility that resilience exists on a moving scale depending on what an officer may be going through in his or her personal life at any given time. Family health, death, divorce, and several other personal life events often play the biggest role in how resilient a person is and how a call for service might affect a specific officer. Finally, it’s vital to understand that policing is a very emotional profession—arguably the most emotional profession there is. Officers are human, no matter how superhuman the work they do each day is. Recognizing that truth is essential to moving forward effectively in the area of officer wellness.

Each pillar of support is equally important: mental, physical, financial, and spiritual. They are all vital to the overall wellness of officers. DPD saw the greatest need in the mental health support of its officers, and the department responded accordingly. There’s much more work to do to better support the mental health of the people who protect and serve their communities each day, but DPD is committed to doing all it can do to correct the flawed support models of the past and better protect the minds of those in law enforcement.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The goal of the DPD and the Wellness Unit is to normalize the discussion about wellness and break down the stigmas that have plagued the police profession for generations. Police personnel are suffering—agencies have recruited them into a life of service, which officers fulfill honorably each day, but have failed to adequately prepare personnel for the constant barrage of emotional trauma they would face. Offices are trained and prepared to physically survive but given minimal tools to mentally survive. Discussions about police work are constantly occurring, but any discussion surrounding mental health rarely (if ever) makes it into roll calls, detail reports, or command staff meetings. The profession lacks in-place systems to proactively support its people. Meanwhile, the statistics on suicide, depression, PTSD, anxiety, and divorce just keep rising.

Those serving in law enforcement deserve a proactive system to support their wellness. It is imperative that leaders understand how to better serve those who protect and serve their communities each day. Officers answer every call their communities ask of them, striving to address homelessness, truancy, broken homes, addiction, and mental illness, in addition to crime and disorder. Officers serve as counselors, therapists, warriors, guardians, and everything in between. The challenge now faced by the profession is the protection of officers’ mental health, and it’s going to take everyone to meet this call. Law enforcement is a big ship, and it won’t turn on a dime, but together leaders and personnel can shift the profession in a more positive direction. It’s time to set a course in a direction that better supports the mental health of police personnel and their families and helps improve first responders’ quality of life—a direction that keeps them whole and keeps them safe.

There’s no better time to get serious about wellness than now. For those who are serious, but are not sure what to do, DPD is here to help. All the procedures DPD has developed are available to any agency that’s interested, including the standard operating procedures, the Checkpoints program model, and the alcohol rehabilitation procedure. Officers and their families are worth whatever it takes to safeguard their wellness. The profession depends on it, and, judging by the statistics seen in policing, officers’ lives do too. 🛡

Please cite as

Reuben G. Ramirez, “From Idea to Implementation: Dallas Police Department Wellness Unit,” Police Chief 90, no. 5 (May 2023): 36–41.