The goal of this guide is to provide law enforcement executives with best practices regarding first responder mental health—best practices learned from colleagues unfortunate enough to have experienced a mass casualty event. The National Alliance on Mental Illness brought together chiefs, mental health professionals, and others with first-hand knowledge to provide readers with a concise compendium of what worked and what did not.

This guide is chronologically organized, beginning with pre-incident preparation and concluding with long-term aftercare. It provides chiefs and command staff with concrete tools to set up a mental health response structure now, when there is time. Trauma is an occupational hazard for first responders, yet officer mental health is a topic that often does not receive proper attention. It has become clear that psychological trauma is every bit as devastating as physical trauma, and the cumulative nature of these events can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, divorce, depression, suicide, and other emotional problems that manifest years after the events occurred. This is why law enforcement agencies must explore long-term care.