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Destination Zero - National Officer Safety and Wellness Awards

Award Information

Award #
2016-VI-BX-K002
Funding Category
Competitive Discretionary
Location
Congressional District
Status
Closed
Funding First Awarded
2016
Total funding (to date)
$1,400,000

Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2016, $400,000)

The FY 2016 Officer Safety and Wellness Initiative -- VALOR Program -- focuses on five (5) distinct national initiatives to improve immediate and long-term health, wellness, and safety of law enforcement professionals: (1) identifying a training and technical assistance (TTA) provider to continue, and enhance, the Preventing Violence Against Law Enforcement and Ensuring Officer Resilience and Survivability Program; (2) identifying a TTA provider to deliver tactical support, on a national level to state and local law enforcement officers responding to an active shooter event; (3) identifying an organization to identify, recognize, and increase awareness of officer safety and wellness best practices and programs at a national level; (4) identifying a national director/coordinator to implement and oversee the creation of an officer safety and wellness pilot research and evaluation program that will develop three pilot research and evaluation sites; and (5) identifying a TTA provider to deliver evidence-based de-escalation training and technical assistance to educate and protect state, local, and tribal law enforcement officers and improve outcomes and relationships between officers and the communities they serve.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) will serve as the Officer Safety and Wellness Recognition Program Provider for the VALOR Program. In cooperation with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the VALOR program, NLEOMF created the Destination Zero program. The goal of Destination Zero is to someday reduce the number of officers killed in the line of duty to zero. BJA, VALOR, and NLEOMF recognize that all law enforcement agencies have a need for safety and wellness programs, but because of budgetary constraints or other factors may not have the expertise or resources to create these programs on their own; thus key deliverables of this program include: collecting, categorizing, and disseminating these potentially life-saving ideas to law enforcement agencies and their stakeholders.

The Destination Zero program collects and distributes primary data on locally successful officer safety and wellness programs, and publically recognizes those law enforcement agencies that are successfully developing and implementing officer safety and wellness initiatives with the National Officer Safety and Wellness Awards. In order to make available this important information and its benefits to the agency or individual officers, the NLEOMF created the website, www.destinationzero.org. The website has officer safety and wellness resources, articles, tools, videos, and implementation strategies and highlights award-winning programs. The website also contains a vast Safety Resources section which features all previous winners and finalists and their innovative and successful programs, as well as unique officer and safety programs and materials from law enforcement agencies throughout the country. CA/NCF

Date Created: September 30, 2016