“I was afraid they might think it was a crazy idea,” said Adrienne Augustus, Program Architect of the Mental Wellness Check-In Initiative she developed for the Hyattsville (Maryland) Police Department (HPD). “As far as I know, no law enforcement or first responder agency has ever required their personnel to meet one-on-one with a mental health professional three or four times a year.

“But when it comes to first responders’ mental wellness, it’s vital to try something different, even radical, to address it,” Augustus, a mental health advocate, explained.

Whether they’re on the street, in dispatch or administration, people who work in law enforcement are exposed to high levels of stress and trauma on a regular basis. “This can be direct or vicarious, but in all cases, it takes a toll on their mental and emotional well-being, which not only affects their physical health, but their job performance and safety, their work and personal relationship, and ultimately, their interactions with the public.”

The Mental Wellness Check-In Initiative

To overcome it, Augustus designed the Mental Wellness Check-In Initiative (MWCI), to not only provide strong, professional mental health support but also destigmatize the concept of therapy and ensure attendance by making regular meetings with mental health specialists compulsory and ongoing.

Hyattsville City Councilmember Daniel Peabody worked with Augustus to get funding for the initiative, and in the fall of 2021, the MWCI launched with $50,000 from the Hyattsville City Council and a two-year, $118,800 grant awarded to the City of Hyattsville by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office).

This funding allowed the HPD to include members of the nearby Brentwood Police Department (BPD) in the program. The now-retired BPD Chief Robert Altoff quickly agreed to join the program because he understood the critical importance of mental wellness and was committed to including his five officers in the program too. The COPS Office grant also allowed members of both departments to access additional mental wellness sessions for free whenever they wished.

“We created the program from the ground up to meet the unique needs of the officers and dispatchers of the Hyattsville—their culture, size, and demographics,” said Augustus. “And a top priority was hiring clinicians who all had at least three years’ experience working with first responders.

“I knew I only had one chance to get this right, so the clinicians had to be qualified to support this specific population. I also worked to provide racial and gender diversity, so the participants could choose therapists they were comfortable with. Cultural competency, on multiple levels, matters for this unique population,” she added.

“When the current chief, Jarod J. Towers, came in right before launching the program in 2021, he opened it up to HPD civilian administrative staff as well. They too are affected, vicariously if not directly, by the stress and tragic events that impact their department. The chief himself is a participant.

“And though it is called the Mental Wellness Check-In Initiative, participants aren’t just checking a box. This program provides meaningful one-on-one, 50-minute interactions between them and mental health professionals,” she added.

Designed for Meaningful Interaction and Easy Access

These meetings are telehealth sessions which initially occurred during work hours, eliminating the need for overtime pay. Participants schedule their appointments and meet with their therapist virtually in a private office at HPD. They also have access to a wellness room Augustus designed under the agreement with BPD. That space, which was donated by a private enterprise, is in a building near HPD headquarters.

In 2023, the quarterly sessions which the program began with, have been reduced to three times a year due to work schedule constraints and participant feedback. But several participants still choose to attend optional sessions in-between the required ones.

Currently, there are seven mental health specialists providing services to the two police departments. All are licensed clinical psychologists or licensed therapists. But according to Augustus, even though these clinicians have the qualifications to provide therapy, and some participants have chosen to use their sessions for that purpose, the MWCI is not meant to be therapy.

“These are psychoeducational sessions, opportunities to talk about stressors with licensed mental health professionals. Participants can acquire tools for self-care, improve communication skills with coworkers and loved ones, and access guidance that enables them to be their best selves on and off duty,” she said, adding that the meetings are confidential and not tied to fitness for duty assessments. “This program is designed to not be therapy, unless the participants want it to be.”

Eliminating the Barrier to Meaningful Mental Health Support

“The MWCI not only takes away the stigma of seeing a mental health professional, but it also gives the participants an easier way to connect with one for additional meetings if they want to. MWCI provides funding for them to go whenever they want, whether it’s because of work or personal stressors, and last summer, HPD expanded the program to include optional family wellness sessions so participants’ loved ones can join them for free.”

In the MWCI’s first four quarters, participants completed confidential pre-and post-session surveys which were collected and analyzed by graduate students at the nearby University of Maryland – College Park School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management.

The surveys revealed that 80 to 100 percent of the participants gave high scores for their level of satisfaction with their behavioral health professional. In another survey after the fourth quarter, 92 percent of the participants said they felt their practitioner understood them, and approximately 88 percent stayed engaged in their session for 40 minutes or longer. Several officers and dispatchers stated that the sessions helped them address specific personal and professional challenges.

Asked about the adaptability of this program to other agencies, Augustus said “I believe the MWCI can work at organizations of any size. The key is recognizing that it is not a one-size-fits-all program. We established a framework by examining the department’s operational structure and then built a blueprint that works for it.”

Regarding financial support for establishing a similar program, she added “Though it’s possible to get grants from state, federal or local government agencies, there could be other resources in the community—businesses or nonprofits who will sponsor wellness initiatives. Another possible option is partnering with another agency to share resources the way the Hyattsville and Brentwood police departments have done.”

For more information on this program, please contact Adrienne@liquidazure.com or augustus.adrienne@gmail.com.

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