Tennessee Law Enforcement and Family Support (LEAFS) Project

Developed primarily by the Tennessee Sheriffs' Association, the program focuses on early recognition of stress and provision of services. Services were developed and implemented in conjunction with providing health insurance and developing a dialogue with service provider networks. The program also produced a text/workbook for educating new recruits and their families on stress-related topics. The program incorporated a monitoring and evaluation component, using a design that attempted to test the efficacy of services provided to law enforcement personnel and their families. Evaluation studies included: Baseline Study; Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD); and Study of CISD; Peer and Family Teams. Selected law enforcement agencies received questionnaires asking individuals to identify their awareness of 19 services that may be offered by their agency as well as the use and willingness to use these services. The questionnaire also presented 22 critical incidents and participants were asked to identify each one they experienced on the job. Finally, participants were asked to identify posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms they may have experienced after a critical incident on the job. The study could not draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of CISD and Support Teams because of problems with data collection. Similarly, evaluation of the teams, while very positive, would have benefited from inclusion of responses from a larger portion of the sample. References, tables, notes, appendixes