September. National Suicide Awareness Month.
September 26. National Law Enforcement Suicide Awareness Day.
Join in the nationwide mission this month – #Bethe1to
Over the past year, BtBF has been called on for guidance and support five times when an agency lost an officer to suicide – that’s twice as often as our responses to department-declared Line of Duty Death during the same timeframe. While we do not share publicly our responses to every call for assistance from an agency or family in need, we do believe it important, during National Suicide Awareness Month, to speak out about the need for support of families and agencies who lose an officer to a death by suicide – and to highlight resources available for prevention and awareness.
It has never been more critical to have open conversations about mental health awareness and suicide prevention, particularly in the law enforcement and first responder communities.
We received the following words from a Sergeant with a department we supported recently. With his permission, we share some of those words with you to give some perspective (some details have been removed for privacy).
“Our officer was a close friend of mine, and I was assigned to be his family liaison after he took his own life last year. I felt obligated to take on this task due to the close relationship that I had with him. This was an extremely stressful process due to the fact that I was assigned multiple responsibilities regarding the funeral arrangements, communicating with the family so they could express their own wishes, and dealing with my own grieving process. Behind the Badge Foundation stepped in and supported me during this process, and to be honest, it was a huge relief. Meg was assigned to help our team from Behind the Badge Foundation, and she immediately stepped in to assist. She was beneficial in explaining the process, giving us her past experiences to avoid problems, and took a huge workload off of me so I could be of better assistance to our officer’s family. Without Behind the Badge Foundation’s support during this process, this task would have been a lot more stressful and complicated. I would like to thank Meg and her team for their support during this difficult process.”
BtBF is here for the highs and lows of law enforcement work - for agencies, officers, and families. Resource and training offerings of BtBF are intended to support the mental health and well-being of our currently serving officers and their families.
Please join us in sharing the mission this month and #Bethe1to
