Organizational Prevention and Intervention Services: Beyond the Early Intervention System

Organizational Prevention and Intervention Services: Beyond the Early Intervention System

Jennifer Kelly, William D. Walsh
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 14
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8544-3.ch047
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Abstract

Improving the opportunities for enhanced health and wellness in first responders has gained national attention in recent years. Employers and other stakeholders striving to improve employee utilization of available resources will need to increase transparency in the process and improve understanding between first responders and clinicians. One potential process, early warning systems (EWS) are primarily designed to alert management to an at-risk employee. However, the continuing goal of any effort should be to identify and remedy any employee issue before the employee exhibits the predetermined number of events that trigger an early warning alert. Although many organizations are adopting an EWS by either choice or mandate, they are largely separate and distinct from the agency's health and wellness programming. Administrators are not only unsure of what data to consider, but also what to do when an alert is activated. Ideally, agencies move toward early intervention systems that themselves are conceptualized within the larger framework of wellness programming.
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Early Warning Systems

Early Warning Systems (EWS) were originally created to detect and address problematic police officer conduct and enable intervention to correct it (Walker, Alpert, & Kenney, 2001). This concept was born out of the 1981 U.S. Commission of Civil Rights recommendation that police agencies create systems to identify “problem officers” that are frequently the subject of citizen complaints (DeCrescenzo, 2005). The original EWSs were designed primarily to alert management about at-risk employees (DeCrescenzo, 2005; Bertoia, 2008). EWSs are widely used in first responder organizations and are mandated in some locations (e.g., the authors’ home state of New Jersey). Despite this, many stakeholders, both on the frontlines and in administrations, are still unsure what data to collect or how to respond appropriately.

Arguably, the original concept of an EWS should be reframed and redesigned more broadly to maintain healthy first responders and organizations, with indirect consequences that benefit their organizations and the communities they serve (Amendola & Davis, 2019). Collaboration with all stakeholders, including labor unions, administration, frontline personnel, and mental health professionals, would help to ensure EWSs are used as intended, to both prevent and address alerts, and not as a disciplinary tool. Union leaderships acknowledging the nonpunitive value of a properly administered EWS would promote frontline personnel buy-in (DeCrescenzo, 2005). Any effort should continuously identify and remedy any employee issue before it triggers an early warning alert.

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