First responders are struggling mightily. This was true before COVID-19. But, in the aftermath of nonstop service, illness, and hardship, these incredible people are also battling a range of mental health issues.

For far too many, the service to their communities has become a burden. Retention and a growing apathy for service have become a problem, and leadership is worried about the future.

This is why FirstNet, Built with AT&T, partnered with Boulder Crest Foundation in 2021. Boulder Crest is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring first responders, combat veterans, and their families can live great lives in the midst of hardship, stress, and struggle. Boulder Crest is the global leader in the development, delivery, study, and scale of post-traumatic growth-based programs.

Any reader who just did a double take when reading that final sentence is not alone. Knowledge of post-traumatic growth (PTG) is in the low single-digits. Few first responders can envision anything positive following the word “post-traumatic.” But Boulder Crest and FirstNet aren’t just imagining that possibility. They are bringing it to life for first responders across the United States.

The PTG Framework

Post-traumatic growth is a proven framework. It details how struggle and trauma can be catalysts for growth and transformation in people’s lives. Dr. Richard Tedeschi and Dr. Lawrence Calhoun, psychologists and researchers at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, first coined the term in 1995.¹

PTG provides a path for transforming struggle into strength and lifelong growth. In 2014, Boulder Crest’s founder, Ken Falke, a retired Navy bomb disposal technician and the son of a Washington, DC, police officer, and Boulder Crest’s executive director, Josh Goldberg,  with Dr. Tedeschi.

The three discussed creating training programs that would help first responders, combat veterans, and family members experience PTG, which led them to develop the first-ever PTG-based program called Warrior PATHH, in 2014.²

Warrior PATHH is a 90-day program that begins with a 7-day intensive initiation. It’s now delivered by nine teams in eight U.S. states, and it’s free to the first responder and combat veteran community.

Transforming Struggle

In 2020, Boulder Crest began exploring ways to turn the COVID-19 pandemic into something positive and transform struggle into growth. To this end, it launched the First Responder Initiative and focused on changing the culture of first responders, in line with a quote from Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar:

The reality is, these are human beings who have sick children, who have aging parents, who have just suffered a loss, who are still trying to process a child dying in their arms the shift before.

These are all things that if we don’t create an environment where we can talk about it – where we can off-load those feelings and support each other – we’re going to have outcomes in the field we don’t want. And officers leaving the profession much sooner than they should.³

Just 18 months later, with support from FirstNet, Boulder Crest has trained more than 1,600 first responders in the principles and practice of PTG through its Struggle Well training program. Boulder Crest has hosted monthly, five -day trainings for law enforcement in Dade County, Florida, and with the Tucson Police Department in Arizona.

In 2022 and 2023, Boulder Crest and FirstNet are expanding the Struggle Well training to North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, Massachusetts, Montana, and Virginia.

Training Results

First responders have called the Struggle Well training:

• • “The best training I’ve ever received in my career.”
  • “Something every member of the profession should experience.”
  • “Life changing.”

Training satisfaction surveys indicate an approval rating of more than 99 percent, and after the training, participants show statistically significant improvement (45 percent) in their PTG scores.⁴

Students continue to get support and access to a private social network and learning community through the Struggle Well App, refresher trainings ,and family trainings.

Four Key Principles

At the core of these trainings are four key principles:

• • Balancing the narrative: The community must move beyond our focus on disorder, diagnosis, dysfunction, and diminishment to a conversation about growing through struggle (post-traumatic growth).
  • Normalizing struggle: The professional and personal stressors that come with being an emergency responder are immense. So, the question is not whether a responder will struggle, but how they will struggle. Training that normalizes the impact of the lifestyle is a critical part of lifting the stigma that comes with the struggle and seeking help.
  • Integrating wellness and PTG into training: It is critical that training focused on officers’ well-being is integrated into law enforcement training programs with the same regularity as any other critical skill set. Officer wellness shouldn’t be viewed as an ancillary topic. Integrating wellness into the fabric of an organization has a positive impact on the culture of public safety.
  • Institutionalizing wellness and PTG training: PTG training needs to be woven into the lifecycle of a responder’s career. To be effective, it must start at the beginning of officers’ training and continue through their transitions out of the workforce.

Less PTSD and More PTG

Moving forward, let’s consider talking less about PTSD and more about PTG. Let’s talk about the possibilities to transform pain into purpose, loss into gain, and struggle into strength.

Let’s talk about the fact that the profession has to do better to help its officers. The cost of service to their communities shouldn’t be the quality of someone’s life and the lives of those they love.

Let’s talk less about diminishment, dysfunction, disconnection, and diagnosis and more about hope, connection, strength, gratitude, and meaning. Let’s make sure first responders can struggle well. They deserve it.

©2022 AT&T Intellectual Property. FirstNet and the FirstNet logo are registered trademarks and service marks of the First Responder Network Authority. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

Notes:

¹ The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Posttraumatic Growth Research Group, “PTG Research Group.”

²Boulder Crest Foundation, “Warrior PATTH.”

³Chad Kasmar (police chief, Tucson, AZ, Police Department), personal interview, June 2022.

⁴Boulder Crest Foundation, 2021 Report on Posttraumatic Growth Initiative,  (Bluemont, VA: Boulder Crest Institute, 2021).