Public safety organizations can no longer afford to ignore mental health and wellbeing with the current staffing crisis. Prioritizing public safety communicator mental health and well-being needs to be at the forefront of organizational strategic planning to strengthen teams, build resiliency and improve retention. A recent study on mental disorders among public safety personnel in Canada found that 48% public safety communications screen positive for some kind of mental health disorder (Carleton et al.,2018). Based on this information we can conclude that public safety communicators are at an extremely high risk of psychological injury due to the repeated exposure to potential psychological traumatic events. Psychological injury is one of the leading factors in increased sick time, short term, long-term leave and leaving the industry. How is this something we as an organization decrease? At Edmonton Police Service we have implemented a two-pronged approach. First, introducing pre hire psychological assessments to ensure we are selecting public safety communicators who have the skills and tools to manage the stressful environment. Second, implementing mandatory wellness sessions to support and assess overall psychological health and wellness including supports yearly to ensure consistent monitoring with the option of referral to additional resources. 
In our proposed presentation we will be discussing how pre hire psychological assessments have revolutionized our hiring process, decreasing our attrition rate to 6%, and ensuring we are putting the right people, with the right tools and skills, on the end of the phone or radio to deal with potentially psychologically traumatic events. Once the public safety communicators have passed the initial psychological screening, we introduced mandatory wellness sessions to maintain good mental health and wellness by reducing stigma, barriers and building retention. 

1. Pre hire Psychological Assessments 
Our pre hire psychological assessments are broken down into two parts: psychometric screening and a psychological interview with a registered psychologist. We administer two different psychometric tests, the 16 personality factors questionnaire for protective services and the Inwald Personality Inventory-2. The major points of this section will focus on the following:
a. The legal framework to screen candidates based on psychological assessment. 
b. Psychological assessment process overview
a. 16 PF Protective Services identifies how individuals cope with stress and respond under pressure, work responsibly, ethically, problem solve and make sound decisions and communicate.
b. Inwald Personality Inventory-2 predicts job-relevant behaviors and job suitability. 
c. Overall psychological assessment report 
c. The value of this process demonstrating the success rate since 2022, including the statistics of those who were screened out any why. 
d. Our overall experience two years into the process, success, and failure 
Pre hire psychological assessments for public safety communicators not only allow us as an employer to ensure we are hiring those with the ability to withstand the stress of a communications center but also allow the candidate to understand the potential risk of the job. It sets the precedent that mental health is taken seriously and that we as an organization want to support mental health and wellness.

2. Mandatory Wellness Sessions 
Our mandatory wellness sessions are required yearly sessions to assess public safety communicator overall psychological and emotional health to determine how they are functioning in all areas of their life. These sessions examine both mind/body and support networks. If necessary, public safety communicators will be referred to additional services for treatment. Most of this section will focus on the following:
a. What is the mandatory wellness session, and most importantly what is it not?
a. It is not a fit for duty. 
b. It is not treatment.
b. Implementation strategy
c. How was the mandatory wellness session developed?
d. Confidentiality 
e. Review of clinical psychologist oversite 
f. Successes/failures 
Mandatory wellness sessions improve overall employee health and morale. They help to create a positive work environment and boost employee engagement making public safety communicators feel valued within the organization and give the public safety communicators the skills to continuous build their resiliency resulting in increased retention and a decrease in staffing issues. 
In conclusion, the implementation of pre hire psychology assessments and mandatory wellness sessions represents a pivotal opportunity for organizations to prioritize and enhance public safety communicator mental health and wellbeing. By integrating this into our hiring process and building upon it throughout their career we invest in our team. The benefits are clear, based on the statistical data, that identifying candidates who meet our psychological job suitability standards through psychological assessments, helps to fostering a supportive work environment. Ultimately, reducing stigma and barriers to create a workplace people want to stay at. 
We invite you to join us in embracing this transformative process to break barriers and stigma to work towards building a resilient team who prioritizes mental health and wellbeing. Together, we can change the narrative on public safety communicators and create an environment where mental health is put first, and public safety communicators are supported through the incredible work they do.