Consideration and Approval of Grant Agreement:  Acceptance of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), Community Policing and Development (CPD) Microgrant for Officer Safety and Wellness for Flagstaff Police Department Staff.

In recent years, an alarming trend has emerged in which more police officers die by suicide than in the line of duty. The Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) has experienced critical incidents and tragically the suicides of two employed officers and the suicide of a former officer in the past ten years, in addition to a medical (PTSD-related) retirement. To counter these destructive trends, FPD is looking to initiate a state-of-the-art 360 Wellness Program to pro-actively address issues that give rise to job-related stress. Officers often bring high stress levels from personal and professional relationships, financial strain, poor nutrition, and improper physical conditioning to the job each day. This pre-existing stress, coupled with a single critical incident or series of critical incidents, can become a breaking point for an individual officer. Accordingly, the program envisioned by FPD is holistically designed and proactive in nature and includes seven key deliverables; 1) providing greater access to counseling services and addressing the stigma surrounding mental health, 2) providing Emotional Survival training for employees and their families, 3) providing financial literacy training, 4) providing nutritional counseling, 5) incentivizing physical fitness, and 6) providing stress inoculation training. These six deliverables will be packaged into a final seventh deliverable; a guidebook, including key materials, implementation guidelines and lessons learned, that will be disseminated to mid-size police agencies across the Southwest to guide them in implementing lasting and sustained change towards improving mental health services for law enforcement professionals. The Flagstaff officer wellness and safety program is a significant step towards adopting a philosophy that not being OK, is OK.

The grant award is $ 88,770.00 which will fund a new and sustainable Officer Safety and Wellness program. This grant will cover all costs associated with the program, and there will be no new cost to the city.  This grant was not budgeted for in FY 2020-2021;however, there is sufficient budget within the police grants to cover these grant expenditures in FY 2020-2021.

The approval of this grant will have no direct impact on any policies of the Flagstaff Police Department.

Effective Governance - Regional Plan (2030) - Planning, Public Safety, Goal PF.3 Provide high-quality emergency response and public safety services.

No, this is a new grant initiative to fund a new program within the Flagstaff Police Department focused on employee wellness and safety. 

Approve the acceptance of the grant or decline the acceptance of the grant.

The CPD Microgrant was awarded to the Flagstaff Police Department to create a new innovative approach to Officer Safety and Wellness with the design to reduce job-related stress, officer suicide, and to promote sound on and off duty decision making through increased training and a commitment to the wellness of our employees.  This program will be summarized in a guidebook and delivered to the COPS Office for examination and review with the intention of being a model program for police agencies across the country.

This grant provides new opportunities to personally and professionally develop and retain the staff at the Flagstaff Police Department by implementing an innovative wellness program that is designed to be sustainable for years to come by creating in-house trainers and implementing healthier lifestyles and choices by our employees.  We hope the program will promote de-escalation techniques and create healthier staff who will make sound and experienced decisions while serving the citizens of Flagstaff and upholding the mission of the Flagstaff Police Department. 

N/A

Our officers will receive state of the art training to better meet the demands of the community and providing excellent customer service to our community.

We will contract with trainers and instructors from different areas of expertise within the community to achieve the seven deliverables within the grant project.