Keuka College will welcome first responders from across New York next week as part of a new partnership aimed at addressing one of the profession’s most persistent challenges: mental health and resiliency.
The college and the New York State Sheriffs’ Institute have partnered to host the institute’s first HERO, or Helping Every Responder Overcome, Resilience Training Program from June 15-19 at the Keuka Park campus.
The weeklong program is designed to provide law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS personnel, dispatchers and other public safety professionals with tools to better manage job-related stress and improve long-term well-being.
College officials said the partnership builds on Keuka’s longstanding ties to the first responder community through its criminology and criminal justice programs, which prepare students for careers in law enforcement, corrections and public safety.
“The men and women who serve as first responders dedicate their lives to helping others, and many of our graduates are among them,” Keuka College President Amy Storey said. “This partnership reflects a simple but powerful idea: They help us; we help them.”
Steuben County Sheriff Jim Allard, who serves as chair of the New York State Sheriffs’ Institute Board, said the program is intended to reduce suicides among first responders and provide participants with practical coping strategies for dealing with the emotional demands of public safety work.
“The whole idea is to get information out to first responders that will help them be more resilient and hopefully decrease the number of suicides among folks who leave the job due to stress and unresolved issues,” Allard said.
The training will include one day focused on suicide prevention, another dedicated to the science of addiction, and three days of instruction through the FBI National Academy Associates’ Comprehensive Officer Resilience Train-the-Trainer Program.
Participants will be trained to return to their agencies and share what they learned with colleagues, expanding the program’s reach beyond those attending the session.
The inaugural training is limited to 20 participants and will draw representatives from public safety agencies throughout New York.
Keuka College will provide classroom space, residence hall accommodations and meals during the weeklong program.
The initiative is supported through the Sheriffs’ Institute’s effort to raise $14 million for the Ron Spike Wellness Center, which is planned at the institute’s summer camp south of the Keuka College campus on Keuka Lake.
Organizers hope to make the resiliency training a quarterly event, with Keuka College serving as one of several host sites around the state.
Beyond the HERO program, the partnership is expected to include research collaboration, educational programming and potential internship opportunities for students through Keuka College’s Field Period program.
Officials from both organizations said the relationship builds on existing connections between the college and regional law enforcement agencies, including Yates County, where Sheriff Frank Ryan also serves as an adjunct professor at Keuka College.
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