NV Energy Foundation Grant Allows Nevada Peer Support Network Resiliency Center
to Open its Sensory Room to Support Front-line Personnel.
RESILIENCE CENTER
The Nevada Peer Support Network Resiliency Center is a dedicated safe space designed to support the unique needs of front-line personnel. Here, individuals can connect through peer support, attend specialized classes, and participate in agency-specific peer meetings, chaplain trainings, and first responder-focused AA and NA groups. The center also provides access to licensed, culturally competent mental health clinicians and social workers, as well as a calming sensory room to help regulate heightened stress responses. It also serves as a resource hub, connecting first responders with vetted dual-diagnosis inpatient centers of excellence that specialize in responder mental health and wellness. In addition, the center welcomes retired first responders seeking connection and renewed purpose, ensuring they remain an integral part of the responder community.
MISSION
Our mission is to provide quality mental health resources and support to our first-responders and hospital health care professionals so they may live the very best lives possible on and off duty. We accomplish this with collaborative efforts to improve resilience by means of breaking down barriers surrounding mental health and align those that serve with optimum mental readiness.
VISION
Our Vision is to help build a stronger, more united public safety and health care community. We strive to be an effective joint collaborative effort to serve those in need regarding the improvement of mental readiness and resiliency. We envision normalizing the subject of mental health by placing importance on the care and maintenance of our minds and emotional health just as we do our physical ailments.
VALUES
Inclusivity– of the entire public safety community and hospital health care responders.
Strength – in our efforts to support one another.
Unity – together we are stronger.
Action – taking action as members and as an organization to raise each other up
Advocate - for best peer support practices and be stewards of our art and science of caring for those in need.
SERVING THOSE WHO SERVE
The Nevada Peer Support Network First Responder Resiliency Center is a dedicated safe space designed to support the unique needs of first responders. Here, individuals can connect through peer support, attend specialized classes, and participate in agency-specific peer meetings, chaplain trainings, and first responder-focused AA and NA groups. The center also provides access to licensed, culturally competent mental health clinicians and social workers, as well as a calming sensory room to help regulate heightened stress responses. It also serves as a resource hub, connecting first responders with vetted dual-diagnosis inpatient centers of excellence that specialize in responder mental health and wellness. In addition, the center welcomes retired first responders seeking connection and renewed purpose, ensuring they remain an integral part of the responder community.
Our organization supports the lives of all who serve and aims to support the mental health, well-being, and resilience of front-line workers so that they can live their best lives both on and off duty. NPSN is innovative in our approach and a nationally recognized leader in supporting the well-being of front-line workers. Since our inception, we have reduced the stigma of front-line workers seeking mental health services, reduced symptoms of trauma and suicide ideation through incident response, counseling services, and peer support, and helped first responders establish new health habits that impact their overall health.
The organization first began as an online directory to connect front-line workers with culturally competent resources, and since then, we have grown extensively in order to meet the growing needs of the community we serve. In two short years, we have hosted resiliency rounds, a state-wide mental health and wellness conference with 400 front-line workers, we opened the first Resiliency Center in the state, and we purchased an ambulance that has been renovated into an incident support vehicle for the first responders who are responding to major incidents. Just the other day, we had one of our members report that the time spent at the Resiliency Center over the last year saved his life.
Our core values include inclusivity, strength, unity, action, and advocacy. We embody these values in the following ways. We partner with agencies across the state and region. Some of our core partners include the Nevada Military Support Alliance, Washoe County Sherriff’s Office, the National Guard, North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, Renown, REMSA, and a multitude of others.
The reason we believe in collaboration is because we know that we are stronger together when we support our fellow brothers and sisters. For example, if a department experiences a suicide or major incident where several people are affected, it can be very difficult for their own peer support team to be able to effectively support one another. We have a network of peers and trained clinicians who can step in as needed. In addition, the Resiliency Center that we opened in January 2021 has become a safe place for all first responders to come. The people who come to the center report that it’s important for them to have a place to go that is not connected to their organization.
