“We lost Detective Daniel Darbonne. He died suddenly,” Weske said. “That was the first time that the wellness program got to be utilized on a large-scale event.” That was in May 2023.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Kissack was killed when he confronted several officers at knifepoint in downtown Juneau. The matter is under state investigation, which is standard procedure for all officer-involved shootings. Weske was not involved in the shooting.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
During an interview on Friday at the JPD station, Weske focused on the overall curriculum and goals of the wellness program and de-escalation training.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Officers’ families are encouraged to participate in counseling services and peer support. The peer support team helps lead critical incident stress debriefs.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“When we have a really big event, we’ll do a debrief, where we bring affected employees in, have a conversation about what happened, how they’re feeling,” Weske said, “talking about what they can expect, what things they should do, and what things they should avoid. The peer support team is a big part of that, whether that’s sitting in on debriefs, or making sure people are getting to them or checking in with them after the fact.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Along with a stress debrief, officers involved in a shooting are placed on three days of administrative leave per JPD’s policy.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The wellness program includes counseling, training, and a 16-person peer support <\/a>team<\/a>. Weske is a part of that team.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “You have day-to-day peer support for your employees,” he said. “Someone that somebody can go talk to, get resources, just have a conversation with someone that they know is confidential and can help guide them through whatever it is that they’re dealing with.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The Juneau Police Department’s wellness boards are found throughout the police station with mental health resources and posters encouraging family quality time. (Jasz Garrett \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t The wellness program started with a federal Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act grant. Weske said JPD had been working toward a program for years and the grant allowed the department to offer free counseling for all employees. Then JPD began working with Teri Forst, who owns Anchor Counseling and Consulting. Now, it also offers other counselors for employees.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t From dispatchers to administrators, everyone is affected by what they see and hear at the police department, Weske said, so the program is available to everybody.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We wanted to have a training component so that people coming in are trained from the get-go on resiliency in mental health and wellness. We just wanted to make sure that the culture surrounding mental health was changing, and being able to incorporate everybody is a big part of that,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Resiliency training begins when an employee is hired; they and their significant other meet with Forst.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “In another 10 or 15 years, there won’t be anybody around that remembers that this didn’t exist,” Weske said. “This is just going to be the way the police department operates.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Weske said not everyone uses counseling services, so JPD also conducts annual wellness checks to educate employees about nutrition, sleep, health, and stress reduction.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The next step in the station’s wellness program is to add a chaplaincy program. He said the station is almost ready to announce a call for police department chaplains.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The police station wellness programs direct employees to resources and phone numbers to call if they need support. If an employee needs the wellness program, they simply have to text the phone number provided. Everything is confidential, just like it would be for any other person seeking mental health services.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Weske has been working at JPD for 18 years. He said his generation of officers knew that mental health was an issue and awareness around post-traumatic stress disorder was beginning. He and other officers would discuss difficult calls with each other.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “But culturally, big picture, police departments weren’t really doing a lot to help their employees through those, so there was still a lot of the old mentality of, ‘Suck it up,’” he said. “You’re not going to show emotion. That was still pretty pervasive. But the guys and gals I came in with, we could see what was needed.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t De-escalation at JPD<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t JPD officers are also trained in Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) and de-escalation.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “What am I looking for? What am I going to see when someone’s experiencing a mental health crisis? They talk about how people are affected by mental illness, how their families are affected,” Weske said. “They go over common diagnoses, what that might look like out on a call so that you can have a sense of, ‘Is this someone who’s experiencing a psychotic break? Is this someone who is a manic depressive?’ You’re not going to diagnose anybody, but you at least have a sense of what might be going on. It’s a lot of education on how to let somebody know that you may not believe what they’re saying, but you believe that they’re experiencing what they’re feeling.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/37209333_web1_JPDtraining-JUE-240828-1_2.jpg\")
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