Following is a suggested block of training for a typical law enforcement academy, ideally consisting of 6 hours training per cadet.  It draws on the combined contributions of retired officers, peer officers, medical staff, and instructors.

Like any program, however, this presentation can be condensed to as little as one to four hours, focusing on the most salient points (particularly self care and the “Mental Health Prescription”).  While the impact will be lessened to some degree as it gets shorter, the message can still be effective if presented with energy; we fully recognize in a real world that departments may wish to test the concept and its reception, or be absolutely forced to limit it for reasons beyond their control.  It’s far better than depriving cadets of these tools altogether.

“It’s no use talking to the cadets,” we've been told.  “They’re too green and have no idea what it’s like out there.”  Perhaps, then, we should tell them.  Impossible?  Not if it’s presented in an adult way.  

It might be noted that there is considerable involvement of retired officers.  This is deliberate.  They are outside the “power structure” and thereby have enhanced credibility.  The use of retirees also acknowledges that, of all the endangered groups in law enforcement, they are at the highest risk of suicide; it is not a leap of logic to understand the benefits of involving retirees—particularly those that had exceptionally traumatic careers—in these programs.

For the above reason, we believe it’s important that the instructors in this program be permitted the levity of putting the cadets “in a comfort zone” that allows them, as they grow familiar with the instructor from each day to the next, to listen and speak openly without the façade, the veneer that is the expected part of the academy day.  To achieve this, of course, the smaller the group the better.

First, in past presentations to cadets of police and sheriffs departments, we've learned that a high percentage of them have already been in therapy—perhaps with family members, perhaps over an issue of their own.  Unlike your officer with 25 years on the road, there is no preconceived barrier to psychotherapy.

     The goal of academy training should be singular—the “Annual Mental Health Prescription