Grant: Catalyst Grant: Crisis Line and App-based Support for Public Safety

The aim of this project is to investigate whether public safety personnel who provide peer support to their colleagues are affected by hearing traumatic stories from their colleagues. We will ask peer supporters enrolled in the On-Call program to complete a survey at the beginning of the program and three months and six months after it starts. The survey will ask about individual symptoms of distress such as anxiety, sleep and mood as well as organizational factors which reflect stress such as burnout or feeling betrayed or humiliated by an organization. We hypothesize that peer supporters who are distressed by organizational factors are more likely to show signs of distress at 6 months. We will also conduct a qualitative study to ask about their experiences of providing peer support. We will invite peer supporters with high and low symptoms scores to be part of the qualitative study.