This bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, through the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, to set up an interagency working group. The group's job is to review best practices for peer-to-peer behavioral health programs tailored to law enforcement officers and first responders and to give updated recommendations to Congress. The review must consider different occupational models and include best practices on confidentiality protections, training standards for peer supporters, and how peer programs should work with licensed mental and behavioral health professionals. The working group must be made up of federal officials (including the HHS Secretary, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security), appointed representatives of government agencies that employ officers and responders, law enforcement officers and first responders with peer-support experience, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations. The Secretary must try to achieve balanced representation. The working group must publish a report online and send recommendations to Congress within one year after the bill becomes law. The working group ends one year after it completes the required reports, but the Secretary may ask to reconvene it later if updates are needed. The bill defines "first responder" to include firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, public safety telecommunicators, corrections public safety personnel, and other emergency response personnel the Secretary finds appropriate.
If you are a law enforcement officer, a firefighter, EMS worker, corrections public safety worker, or another emergency responder, this bill creates a short-term group that will review peer-support programs and recommend minimum standards and ways to integrate those programs with licensed care. The group will publish its findings online and send recommendations to Congress within one year of enactment. The bill does not itself create a nationwide program or specific funding; it focuses on review and recommendations.
The bill authorizes "such sums as may be necessary" to carry out the working group. No publicly available information on estimated total costs.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.