Program

Learn more at Cascade Canine Crisis Response

Becky Neugent, APCO's Immediate Past President and 911 Director, Autauga 911

Stephanie Conn, PhD, ABPP Board Certified in Police & Public Safety Psychology, Licensed Psychologist, First Responder Psychology

Dispatcher/ call-takers often cannot use typical strategies recommended to other first responders since they are often required to remain at their work console. For this reason, this presentation will describe how dispatcher/call-takers can take proactive and responsive steps to adaptively respond to chronic and acute stress and trauma while at the console.

It will begin with a plain-language discussion of the neurobiology of trauma to lay the groundwork for the recommended strategies that follow. They will then be given tools for managing distress and promoting adaptive processing that can be performed pre-emptively outside of work and in the moments of distressing calls while remaining at the console.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Attendees will be able to identify proactive measures to be resilient to lessen the acute impact of trauma.
• Attendees will be able to identify strategies for lessening the impact of trauma while remaining at the work console/ call/ radio station.
• Attendees will be able to identify personal strategies for increasing frustration tolerance, and building solution-focused, adaptive perspectives.

View Slides

Stephanie Conn, PhD, ABPP Board Certified in Police & Public Safety Psychology, Licensed Psychologist, First Responder Psychology

Optional Participation Session
Co-facilitated by the Stephanie Conn, PhD, ABPP and ASAP-trained peer team members

At the conclusion of the training, attendees will be invited to participate in an Acute Stress Adaptive Protocol (ASAP) co-facilitated by the instructor and ASAP-trained peer team members. ASAP is an EMDR-based intervention adapted for delivery by trained peer supporters, chaplains, and other non-licensed support persons. This will be a completely voluntary offering, allowing them to either benefit from personally participating or observing the facilitation of the intervention (observing facilitators, not other participants). In this way, they can experience the benefit of proactively addressing difficult events while developing and practicing stress management tools.

Charles Hedgespeth, Instructor, LevelUp 911 Training

This session will guide you in prioritizing your health through simple yet effective changes that you can easily incorporate into your daily life. We will explore the three types of health—physical, mental, and social—and dive deep into the eight dimensions of wellness, focusing on how these aspects intersect and support your overall well-being. You’ll learn practical strategies for enhancing sleep quality, optimizing your nutrition, cultivating a mindset of gratitude, and integrating simple exercises into your routine, all tailored to the needs of 9-1-1 professionals. By the end of the session, you’ll be equipped with actionable tools that support both your immediate well-being and your long-term health goals, helping you work toward the ultimate goal of longevity and sustainable wellness.

View Slides

Join us for an engaging and interactive session designed to help create connections with each other in a fun and meaningful way. In this activity, you'll co-create a mural-sized, visual network of your connections, discovering shared interests and opportunities for mutual support. Come ready to connect, create and discover the hidden network within the room!

Jessica Tresch MPA, ENP, RPL, Emergency Communications Supervisor, Wellness & Resiliency, Peer Support Coordinator, Denver 911 | City and County of Denver; Amber Cass, Workforce Management Analyst, Denver 9-1-1 Communications | City and County of Denver

We believe there is no "one size fits all" peer support program, and we believe that 9-1-1 centers need their OWN peer support teams. We'll share our path to building Denver 911's team ... What worked? What didn't? How did we make it happen with no time and no budget? We're very proud to have hosted a very successful telecommunicator specific peer support certification class which has gotten international attention. We are by no means the experts, in fact we'll tell you what we stole from other teams! We'll also show how we leveraged technology to give credibility to our efforts.

View Slides

Ryan Chambers, Account Executive, Mindbase

In February of 2018, when Ryan lost his wife, he experienced not just personal tragedy, but also the incredible power of support from those who truly showed up for him. During this session, you will hear a firsthand experience of the power of peer support. As his public safety family rallied around personal family, Ryan will share the impact of informal and formal processes of peer support and how the benefits helped guide him through the days of emotional trauma that rocked his world and his community. This story highlights the profound impact of showing up for each other, beyond just protocols and procedures.

To conclude the session, Ryan will bring together all the key insights from the past few days, helping us connect the dots between the concepts we've explored. He will motivate us to apply what we have learned as we continue to grow the wellness community within public safety.

Michael O'Connor, APCO 2nd Vice President and Executive Director, Western Will County Communications Center