Become A Hero
Peer support training for public safety agencies and healthcare — customized to your people, policies, and needs.
Public safety personnel and healthcare workers routinely face high levels of stress, trauma, and cumulative exposure to difficult experiences as part of the work. Yet stigma, concerns about confidentiality, and uncertainty about where to turn can keep personnel from using traditional resources such as EAP, clinical services, or chaplaincy. Peer support is designed to close that gap—providing a trusted, confidential first point of connection with someone who understands the realities of the work.
What Sets This Program Apart
Peer Support And Active Bystandership Are Taught As Connected Skills
Peer supporters learn the same core decision sequence—notice, interpret, take responsibility, and act—that underlies effective intervention. The result is one integrated skill set for supporting colleagues and addressing concerns early.
Confidentiality Training Content is Grounded In Each Agency's Legal And Policy Environment
Before implementation, the program reviews state law and agency policy so peer supporters understand exactly what is, and is not, protected.
Peer Supporters Learn To Recognize Risk In Themselves, Too
The training addresses secondary traumatic stress and burnout, giving peer supporters a practical self-check routine and clear pathways for seeking support before their own wellbeing is compromised.
The Program Works Within The Agency's Existing Support Ecosystem
Chaplaincy, EAP, and other health and wellness resources are incorporated into the training, reducing duplication and making the program easier to implement agency-wide.
Leader And Supervisor Participation Is Required, Not Optional
Leaders’ participation is what makes the program operational, not just a training event.
One Integrated Design, Seamless Integration
One Integrated Design, Seamless Integration
This is not a menu of options, but one continuous build, designed to strengthen your agency's existing health and wellness supports rather than duplicate them. Pre-implementation grounds the entire program in what's already there, so it launches a peer support team—or relaunches one that's stalled—on solid footing, with day one's confidentiality content and day three's integration work both built from those findings.
PRE-IMPLEMENTATION
• Agency policy and state law review
• Evidence-informed wellness program evaluation
• Peer supporter selection coaching
PRE-WORK | 45 MIN.
• What peer support is
• Confidentiality basics
• Intro to active bystandership
TRAINING DAY 1 | 8 HRS.
• Active listening and core skills, with practice role-play
• Recognizing psychological harm and cumulative stress
• Recognizing substance use and coping concerns
• Confidentiality, ethics and scope of role
TRAINING DAY 2 | 8.5 HRS.
• Recognizing trauma responses (anxiety, PTSD)
• Suicide awareness, risk recognition and response
• Resilience, post-traumatic growth and faith-based approaches
• Active bystandership and peer support — where they meet, including recognizing burnout in themselves
• Scenario practice, training evaluation and certification
TRAINING DAY 3 | 8 HRS.
• Wellness-resource
• Training-planning working session with agency leaders
• Operationalizing the program for frontline supervisors
SUSTAINABILITY
• Policy support
• Biannual reinforcement training
Leaders
PRE-IMPLEMENTATION
- Leader consultation
- Agency policy and state law review
- Evidence-informed wellness program evaluation
- Peer supporter selection coaching
Cohort
PRE-WORK | 45 MIN.
Required eLearning module focusing on:
- What peer support is
- Confidentiality basics
- Intro to active bystandership
Cohort
TRAINING DAY 1 | 8 HRS.
- Occupational stress and the case for peer support
- Active listening and core skills, with practice role-play
- Recognizing psychological harm and cumulative stress
- Recognizing substance use and coping concerns
- Confidentiality, ethics and scope of role
Cohort
TRAINING DAY 2 | 8.5 HRS.
Crisis skills and integration:
- Recognizing trauma responses (anxiety, PTSD)
- Suicide awareness, risk recognition and response
- Resilience, post-traumatic growth and faith-based approaches
- Active bystandership and peer support — where they meet, including recognizing burnout in themselves
- Scenario practice, training evaluation and certification
Supervisors
TRAINING DAY 3 | 8 HRS.
- Policy
- Wellness-resource
- Training-planning working session with agency leaders
- Operationalizing the program for frontline supervisors
SUSTAINABILITY
- Consultation
- Policy support
- Biannual reinforcement training
Evidence Base
Grounded in Van Hasselt et al.'s PALS/PALS-C research (NSU First Responder Research and Training Program), Bowers, Beidel & Steigerwald's 2025 critical review of first responder peer support research, IACP Psychological Services Section Peer Support Guidelines, and current literature on post-traumatic growth and program design. Full citation list available on request.
Interested in the Heroes Peer Support Program for your organization?
