Preparing for the Unimaginable: How Chiefs Can Safeguard Officer Mental Health Before and After Mass Casualty Events -

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Résumé :
While most government agencies are trained in how to react to a mass casualty event such as a terrorist attack or natural disaster, few are prepared to deal with the psychological fallout for first responders. Preparing for the Unimaginable fills that void. This book is the product of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s work with the Newtown, Connecticut, police force in efforts to cope with the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school that left twenty six people, including twenty children, dead.

This unique publication offers expert advice and practical tips for helping officers to heal emotionally, managing the public, dealing with the media, building relationships with other first responder agencies, and much more. Complete with firsthand accounts of chiefs and officers that have guided their departments through mass casualty events, Preparing for the Unimaginable seeks to provide practical, actionable strategies to protect officer mental health before and after traumatic events.

Biographie:
Laura Usher is the manager, criminal justice, and advocacy with National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Usher served for eight years as NAMI’ s program manager for crisis intervention teams (CIT) and has assisted law enforcement agencies nationwide in improving responses to people in the community experiencing mental health crises. Usher is also the coauthor of numerous reports, including Responding to Youth with Mental Health Needs: A CIT for Youth Implementation Manual, Grading the States 2009: A Report on America’ s Health Care System for Adults with Serious Mental Illness, and State Mental Health Cuts: The Continuing Crisis. She has served on numerous advisory panels on policing and mental illness for the Police Executive Research Forum, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and The Arc.