Class Offerings by Brian Casey

All class offerings are adapted to the individual work group and timeframes. Classes can be 2 hours, 4 hours, 1-day, or 2-day class long, and offered in-person or online.

Decades of experience working in public safety, and as a health educator, enable me to speak in simple and relatable terms about the most pressing mental and emotional issues. I have extensive teaching experience and have authored two books, Good Cop, Good Cop and Ambulance Man, and a third coming in June 2022, Peer Support Fundamentals.

Peer Support Fundamentals (Options: 1-day class or 2-day class)

Well-trained and skilled peer support teams can elevate a work group’s expectation of wellbeing. Peer support can decrease the unnecessary suffering of coworkers while also giving peer team members a greater sense of purpose. Peers are uniquely qualified because they often understand the stressors of the workplace, demands of the work, and may have shared experiences on or off the job. With training and guidance, they can be a wellness force multiplier.

This introductory course provides peer support team members with a more in-depth understanding of the principles, basic knowledge, and essential skills needed to best support coworkers in mental and emotional distress. Peer support can decrease the unnecessary suffering of coworkers while also giving peer team members a greater sense of purpose.

Peer Support Fundamentals covers the following lessons:

1. What is Peer Support?

2. Help and Helping

3. The Peer Support Role

4. Guiding Principles of Peer Support

5. Peer Support Skills

6. Peer Support Core Knowledge and Understanding

7. How to Build, Maintain, and Train a Team

8. Peer Support Team Member Health and Resiliency

My peer support classes teach, prepare, and hone the skills needed for effective peer support and assist in the development of high-functioning peer support teams. With effective peer support, workgroups may better plan for, respond to, and prevent problems or even a crisis.

This training can be expanded to 4 days (32 hours).

Peer Support Overview (2-hour class)

Peer Support Overview training is a two-hour class that provides participants with an awareness of the principles, basic knowledge, and essential skills needed to best support coworkers in mental and emotional distress.

This is a course for anyone who wants to learn how to provide informal peer support to coworkers. It will give participants the basic knowledge and confidence to take action and help decrease the unnecessary suffering of coworkers.

Topics Include:

▪ Building and maintaining trust

▪ Informal and formal peer support

▪ Guiding Principles of Peer Support

▪ What peer support IS and IS NOT

▪ Listening, talking, and intervening skill

Resiliency Class (Options: 2-hour class; 4-hour class; 1-day class)

Understanding that resiliency can be both gained and lost, we can learn to better manage stress and adversity as individuals and as a group with certain attitudes, behaviors, and practices.

Topics include:

▪ Communal approach to resiliency: peer support

▪ Individual approach to resiliency: rest and recovery, neurology, resiliency attitudes and skills

▪ Increase clarity about our purpose and function

Officer Wellness Class (Options: 2-hour class; 4-hour class; 1-day class)

We can organize our thinking about officer mental and emotional distress to better respond to, plan for, and prevent problems or even a crisis.

Topics include:

▪ Cop Think: Why We Do What They Do

▪ Stress, Mood, and Thought

▪ Critical Incidents and Traumatic Events

▪ General Mental and Emotional Distress

▪ Behavioral Health Crisis

▪ Alcohol Misuse Issues

▪ Peer Support and Early Intervention

▪ Inner Life and Outer Life

▪ Purpose and Function

▪ Roll-Call: Do Good Work and be a Force for Good

Psychological Trauma Class (Options: 2-hour class; 4-hour class; 1-day class)

With a better understanding of psychological trauma and an appreciation of the special needs and perspectives of public safety workers, we can better plan for, respond to, and prevent problems or even a crisis.

Topics include:

▪ The Three Columns of Distress

▪ Big “T” and Little “t” trauma

▪ How the Immediate Survival Brain Works

▪ Common Reactions to Intense Events

▪ Impact (who, what, and for how long)

▪ Critical Incidents and Traumatic Events

▪ Post-traumatic Stress Recovery (before-during-after)

For speaking and/or officer wellness training engagements, as well as questions for the author, please visit our Contact page. You can also reach out to Brian Casey by email at .