Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.), founded in 1984, is a national non-profit organization with the mission of rebuilding the shattered lives of survivors and co-workers affected by line of duty deaths. C.O.P.S., after experiencing a sharp increase in line of duty deaths over the past three years, now provides services to the 75,000 survivors in C.O.P.S.’ secure database. C.O.P.S. will partner with the Public Safety Officer’s Benefit (PSOB) office to continue to build their survivor network and provide services to survivors through their 14 Hands-on Programs and through outreach by their 55 Chapters. Two of these programs are new and directly benefit suicide survivors who intend to file for PSOB benefits. C.O.P.S. has also begun including the children of these officers in C.O.P.S. children’s programs.
C.O.P.S. will also continue to host the Police Survivors’ Conference during National Police Week and chair the National Police Week Committee ensuring police survivors are supported as they attend the numerous national memorial events that week. Every survivor of a line of duty death is invited to National Police Week through C.O.P.S.
C.O.P.S. will continue to conduct highly acclaimed law enforcement training to prepare agencies to respond to a line of duty deaths or traumatic incidents and will present at law enforcement conferences to educate about C.O.P.S. services and PSOB. C.O.P.S. will host an annual National Conference on Law Enforcement Wellness and Trauma to further engage law enforcement in the importance of preparedness and to increase knowledge of the PSOB benefits.
C.O.P.S. will increase the capabilities of their PSOB Liaisons and chapters by adding additional training in partnership with PSOB. A new tracking system will be used to ensure every line of duty death survivor is offered assistance, including suicide survivors.
C.O.P.S. communicates with law enforcement agencies and survivors of fallen officers through their website, printed and email newsletters, innovative videos, podcasts, phone applications and social media.
C.O.P.S. has a secure database of law enforcement survivor contacts and the information concerning their fallen officers. C.O.P.S. has increased the capability of the database to also capture suicide survivors to ensure they are also offered PSOB assistance and C.O.P.S. services. C.O.P.S. will partner with PSOB to use this information to determine eligibility for C.O.P.S. services and to advertise the PSOB benefits available to survivors.
C.O.P.S. is committed to collecting data from all of its services to foster a culture of using evidence-based practices to ensure continuous improvement.
