HRSA | All Clear Foundation

Agencies serving small, rural, and medically underserved communities often lack resources and must make difficult decisions with meager budgets. Many times, much needed wellness supports lose out to other valid competing priorities.

To help provide these essential programs, ACF is implementing a comprehensive system of Solutions within 150 small, rural, and/or medically underserved agencies over the next 3 years.

In 2022, All Clear Foundation (ACF) was awarded funding to provide their tailored spectrum of mental wellness supports to Emergency Responders, Healthcare Workers, and their families.

These Solutions are designed to decrease burnout and compassion fatigue, boost resiliency, and improve overall wellbeing, on and off the job.

This comprehensive program involves five essential components:

1.

ResponderStrong Mental Health Curriculum Train the Trainer Workshop (RS-MHC-TtT)

ACF’s ResponderStrong Mental Health Curriculum, written by Responders for Responders, has been adopted by many organizations, agencies, peer support programs, and colleges across the country to provide more effective mental wellness training to those who tirelessly serve our communities. To better disseminate this training, we have adopted a Train the Trainer model in the form of a one-day class. The format for each event is hybrid, allowing in-person and virtual attendance. To date, we have trained more than 700 facilitators across the U.S. These participants can then reteach the content as they choose within their agencies and communities. This content focuses on the physiology of stress, stress injury statistics among our ranks, stress injury formation, suicide awareness and prevention, and resilience. With the increasing need for informed discussion around stress injury, burnout, suicidality, and resilience, we are very pleased to be able to offer this content at no cost to agencies, eliminating budget barriers and preventing re-invention of the wheel. This grant provides full funding for 30 RS-MHC TtT Workshops across the country.

2.

YOU | ResponderStrong Wellness Tool

ACF’s digital YOU|ResponderStrong Wellness Tool is available free 24/7 to all Emergency Responders, HealthCare Workers, and their family members. Filled with vetted, evidenced-based content, this tool is designed to provide users with a private place for self-assessment, exploration of overall wellness, stories shared by other Responders, and connection to tailored resources. This tool is constantly evolving with fresh content and resources. It also includes a growing series of self-coaching modules that empower users to address issues commonly faced by Responders including anxiety, stress management, substance use to numb, burnout, healthy leadership during prolonged crisis, nutrition to sustain high performance, and other topics.

3.

National Emergency Responder & Public Safety Center (NERPSC) Wellness Program access for Agencies

A one-year membership to the NERPSC Agency Wellness Program for personnel and their families. NERPSC has re-envisioned agency wellness programs and lengthy trainings, developing a cost-effective, online toolkit of powerful interventions to address all levels of mental health and wellness for agencies to share on-demand with personnel and their families.

4.

NERPSC Clinician Certification Scholarships

For each agency selected, a local mental health clinician will be offered a full scholarship to the NERPSC Emergency Responder and Public Safety Clinician Certification, enhancing this professional’s cultural competency and trauma-informed status to better serve the long-term mental health needs of the agency’s personnel and families.

5.

Data Driven Actionable Recommendations

The International Public Safety Data Institute (IPSDI) will create data-driven recommendations based on anonymized intervention impact metrics. These recommendations in the form of policies and guidelines will help Agencies more effectively address the needs of their personnel related to burnout, compassion fatigue, stress injury, retention, job satisfaction, and other issues.

This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number U3N45390 Health and Public Safety Workforce Resiliency Training Program. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.