Mental health initiatives for officers grew following wave of anti-police protests : NPR

Jonnie Moeller-Reed is the wellness officer at the Marietta Police Department in suburban Atlanta. In her role, she oversees programs that build resiliency and help cops who struggle with stress, burnout and trauma.

Katja Ridderbusch

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Katja Ridderbusch

ATLANTA — A day rarely goes by when Officer Jonnie Moeller-Reed’s eyes don’t fall on a small, framed photograph on the bookshelf in her office. It shows two smiling young men in casual, colorful shirts and shorts. Both died by suicide in the past few years. Looking at the photo of her late colleagues “is my daily reminder of what truly motivates me,” says Moeller-Reed, her voice quivering ever so slightly.

Moeller-Reed is a law enforcement veteran of 25 years and the wellness officer at the Marietta Police Department in suburban Atlanta. It’s a new position the agency created a year ago.

The move is part of a larger trend that’s tied to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Waves of anti-police protests swept the country, exacerbating the already poor state of officers’ mental health and bringing the issue onto a broader public radar.

“It was a catalyst moment — not just for social and racial justice in the U.S., but also for police officers’ mental health,” says Andy Carrier, a retired Georgia State Trooper and licensed clinical social worker.

The widespread anti-police sentiments contributed to a wave of resignations among law enforcement officers, creating a vicious cycle of understaffed departments and overworked and burned-out cops, adds Carrier, who is also chief operating officer of Valor Station, a mental health treatment facility in Augusta, Ga., that exclusively serves first-responders.

There had been concern for the mental health of law enforcement officers long before George Floyd became a household name. For example, officer wellness had been a pillar in the findings of President Obama’s 2015 Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Research shows police officers are more likely to suffer from cardiac death at a much younger age than the general public. Rates of depression, burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, are significantly higher among police officers than in the civilian population. Some studies suggest that 30% of cops struggle with substance abuse — alcohol dependence is at the top of the list. In recent years, more police officers have died by suicide than were killed in the line of duty, according to the first-responder advocacy group First H.E.L.P.

Among the states leading officer wellness initiatives are New York, New Jersey, California and Texas, where larger public safety agencies have created dedicated wellness units and state legislatures have mandated and funded wellness initiatives for first-responders. Georgia is also among the more forward-thinking states, Carrier says.

The average law enforcement officer in the United States is exposed to 188 traumatic events over the span of their career, research suggests, compared with the average civilian adult experiencing two to three over their lifetime. There is also the cumulative stress of police work: the daily drips of violence, misery and death; the relentless staccato of calls that can spiral from mundane to dramatic in a split second.

The year 2020 was “a catalyst moment for police officers’ mental health,” says Andy Carrier, a retired Georgia State Trooper, licensed clinical social worker and chief operating officer of Valor Station in Augusta, Ga.

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“The trauma builds up over thousands of shifts,” says Matthew Carpenter, a former officer with the New York City Police Department, who holds a Ph.D. in behavioral science and is the co-founder of Valor Station.

In addition to the job-related trauma, there are also organizational stressors, which studies suggest most police officers consider to be even greater: internal investigations, staff shortages, long hours and required overtime work, Carpenter says.

Frustration, fatigue and burnout typically hit cops at the 10- to 15-year mark on the job, Carrier adds. That’s when “innocence becomes cynicism, curiosity becomes arrogance and compassion becomes callousness,” he says.

Officer Austin Turner has been a Marietta patrol officer for close to four years. The 34-year-old has worked the evening shift for most of the time. It’s typically the busiest shift, with calls ranging from domestic violence to traffic accidents to shootings.

“It’s high volume, fast, back-to-back, with hardly any time to process what you’ve just experienced,” Turner says. “It takes a toll after a while.”

After four years on the job, Marietta Police Officer Austin Turner noticed that the cumulative stress of police work was making him short-tempered and appear less empathetic. He took some time off and spoke with the agency’s peer support team.

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There’s also the horror of one particular night that has stayed with him. In September 2022, two deputies from a neighboring agency were ambushed and killed while serving a warrant. Turner was among the responding officers, and he remembers the images of his slain colleagues. As a cop, “if you hear a tone-out, your heart rate immediately jumps up,” he says, referring to an alert sound during radio traffic that signals a high-priority call.

Feeling increasingly burned out and on edge, Turner says, he was at times short-tempered when interacting with members of the public, and he may have come across as unempathetic. He remembers being constantly hyped up, and it took him hours to decompress when he got home.

He recently took time off to spend with his family and switched from the evening shift to the day shift. He also started speaking with a member of the agency’s peer support team — fellow cops who have received specialized mental health training and are legally and ethically bound to keep conversations confidential.

Marietta, a 142-officer department, provides other services to help cops deal with the stressors of the job. There are mental health debriefings for officers who have been involved in a critical incident, such as a shooting or an infant death. The agency also offers Brazilian jiujitsu training. Initial data provided by the department suggest that practicing the martial art not only helps boost officers’ physical and mental health, but also enables cops to use less force during an arrest or altercation.

In 2023, the department became one of the few agencies in the country to open a dedicated wellness room for its officers. The small space is outfitted with a massage chair, dimmable lights, aromatherapy oils and a sound-immersion system. Here, cops can decompress after a stressful event or take a brief time-out during a draining shift.

Wellness Officer Moeller-Reed, who holds a master’s degree in forensic psychology, recently helped launch a pilot program with a local farm that offers therapeutic programs with horses. In a public safety job, “you have to be very self-aware; you’ve got to be cognizant of the energy you’re putting out to the public,” she says. Interacting with animals, and horses in particular, can serve as a bellwether and teach officers self-regulation.

If a horse turns away or doesn’t cooperate, it tells the officer to stop and ask themselves, “What kind of vibe am I putting off? Am I being too tense? Too aggressive? Too anxious?” she explains.

Another part of Marietta’s approach to wellness is education — for recruits and working cops, as well as their families. It’s impossible to truly prepare new officers for what they are going to experience once they hit the road, Moeller-Reed says. “But you can educate them about how stress manifests itself physically and mentally, and you can teach practical coping skills.”

That’s also the goal of the Georgia Public Safety Resiliency Program, a three-day class that’s mandated for recruit training in the state. It’s based on a course originally designed by the U.S. Air Force and taught, with variations, across the country. The class takes a hands-on and holistic approach by addressing mental, physical, social, spiritual and financial challenges and stressors.

On a crisp spring day, 89 cadets gathered in the concrete courtyard at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth, about 80 miles south of Atlanta
“I was happy to see the class on the schedule, because it is something we can use right away as we hit the ground running,” said cadet Jenna Golonka. The 31-year-old has two young children and was eager to learn about work-life balance. “I want to be present at home and in my job,” she said.

Mental health and wellness training at the police academy is important to lay a foundation of awareness, says police researcher Matthew Carpenter. But it should be reinforced throughout an officer’s entire career, which often spans more than 20 years.

Places like Valor Station exist for first-responders who are struggling with severe depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse. The nonprofit facility opened in April, joining others in Maryland, Utah, Florida, California and Texas. Valor Station offers a month-long residential treatment program, including individual and group talk therapy, as well as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. EMDR is proven to be particularly effective in treating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Valor Station in Augusta, Georgia is a residential treatment facility exclusively for police officers and other first responders who are struggling with PTSD, depression, substance abuse and other mental health issues. The non-profit opened in April, joining a small number of similar centers around the country.

Katja Ridderbusch

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The stigma of seeking help for mental and emotional hardship remains a major barrier in the male-dominated world of law enforcement, Carpenter says, but it is slowly fading, as a younger generation of officers is more open to embracing the concept of mental wellness.

To make an impact, therapists and counselors must be “culturally competent,” meaning they need to understand the world police officers operate in, Carpenter says. Otherwise, it’s counterproductive.

“If, for example, a therapist puts out a bunch of crayons and tells officers to draw the river of life, most cops will say, ‘Are you freaking serious?’ ” he says, laughing.

That’s why at Valor Station, most of the clinical staff are former police officers or military veterans.

Moeller-Reed says her advice to police officers who find themselves worn down after years of relentless stress is “be honest to yourself. Realize if the job has changed you, and not in a good way.”

She briefly looks at the photograph of her two colleagues. “We see ourselves as the fixers and the helpers and the problem solvers, and it’s just hard for us to ask for help,” she says, wearily shrugging her shoulders. “But if we can humble ourselves to do that, I think we can save a lot of lives.”