Boosting Mental Resilience for Utah's First Responders

First responders and law enforcement personnel across the state will have new access to a Utah State University program meant to boost mental resilience – a critical need in those professions.

Local lawmakers helped advance a $550,000 legislative appropriation in the 2021 General Session that will fund a three-year pilot program.

Derrik Tollefson, professor and head of USU’s Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology, has spent several years developing workshops on building resilience. Now, he is creating the program, “Resilient Mind Training for Law Enforcement and First Responders,” to provide skills to increase resilience during and after stressful life events and to enhance work performance.

“This pilot program is the product of brainstorming sessions with former and current legislators and law enforcement leadership who are anxious to provide supports for first responders and law enforcement,” Tollefson said.

It is intended to protect against burnout and trauma, promote healthy relationships and empathy for others, and improve general well-being for participants and their families.

The program came about as a direct result of strong ties the university has with the Utah Department of Public Safety and Utah League of Cities and Towns.

Utah Rep. Ryan Wilcox of Ogden said he was pleased to sponsor the funding request.

“It was more than timely and matched up with exactly what we’ve been trying to accomplish,” he said.

In his role as chair of the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice committee, he has met with police chiefs and officers, first responders, and their families to learn about their issues and priorities.

“Mental health came up again and again, more than any other topic,” he said. “And it affects not only the officers and first responders. Their spouses are affected, and their children.”

The approved funding of $550,000 also will help launch a new USU cross-training program for social work and criminal justice majors—two areas in which professionals increasingly need the knowledge and skills of both. The program is designed to recruit social work majors to work within the criminal justice system and incentivize criminal justice students to also train in social work.

Jennifer Seelig, a former Utah House Minority Leader who now serves as director of community partnerships in USU’s Institute of Government and Politics, said the program will be modeled after USU’s successful Child Welfare Traineeship, which the social work program has operated in partnership with the state Division of Child and Family Services and the federal government since 2008.

“This program will provide education that will facilitate evolutionary action in the fields of law enforcement and social work, to meet the changing needs of our society,” Seelig said.

Wilcox believes both new programs are pieces of an overall solution to improving critical mental health issues.

“Having therapists who understand what criminal justice or first responder personnel go through is tremendously important,” he said. Eventually, he would like to have “statewide, systemwide participation, where all of our universities are working on this.”

Success of the mental resilience trainings could quickly provide fuel to help expand access and address the problem on a larger scale, Wilcox said. The program will begin this coming summer or fall.

Tollefson and his colleague Kevin Webb, associate director of USU’s I-System Institute for Transdisciplinary Studies, plan to invite agencies around the state to have employees participate. They’ll train about 100 participants each year in workshops that consist of three 60-minute sessions. Students from USU’s Master of Social Work program also will work as trainers.

According to Joe Ward, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Science, it’s important for USU faculty and students to create programs like this, reaching beyond the university to make a positive impact on the lives of Utahns.

“A crucial aspect of USU’s mission is to bring research to bear on important challenges the people of Utah are facing,” he said. “This initiative is a great example of USU pursuing its mission.”