For Chiefs, Sheriffs and the People Responsible for Their Department's Wellness
Karen Hurley builds wellness programs for police, fire, EMS, dispatch and corrections agencies, sized to your department and documented well enough to defend line by line to city council or a county board.
The Risk Is Built Into the Job
First responder wellness is an occupational risk problem: repeated trauma exposure is part of the work itself, not an occasional bad day.
A program that treats it like average workplace stress was never going to get used. Most departments already have something on paper, an EAP number, an app, a peer support team. The gap is a program built for the specific risk your people carry, funded, and actually used.
Most agencies are small. Almost half of U.S. local police departments have fewer than 10 sworn officers, and most fire departments are volunteer or mostly volunteer. Those agencies rarely have a wellness budget or a staff member to run one, so wellness gets handled informally, if at all.
Sound Familiar?
- You've lost trained people to a department up the road that seems to invest more in them.
- Your peer support program exists on paper but hasn't met in a long time.
- Wellness only comes up when someone is visibly struggling.
- "I'm fine" is the standard answer, so you have no real data on how your people are doing.
- You need to ask council or the county for funding and have no numbers to back the request.
- The templates you've seen were built for agencies many times your size.
Assess, Build, Implement, Track
Karen Hurley follows one sequence with every agency, and a program missing any of the four steps is why so many sit unused.
Wellness Program Assessment
Through PIF Samaritan Services, Karen evaluates your current resources, identifies which roles carry the most exposure, and produces the data you need before the funding conversation happens.
About the assessmentA Funded, Customized Program
PIF Samaritan Services designs a sustainable program and a customized playbook sized to your agency, with training geared toward specific ranks, support for retirees, and technology such as wellness app selection or a custom app for field personnel.
About PIF Samaritan ServicesTeam Training
Coaching with a Karen delivers First Responder Resilience Training and executive leadership training for command staff, built on values-driven principles and performance philosophies from championship-level sports rather than clinical language.
About Coaching with a KarenMoral Injury
Moral injury is the weight of carrying decisions and scenes that conflict with a person's own values, and rest alone doesn't resolve it. Karen Hurley addresses it through a whole-person framework, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. She is not a clinician, and her programs work alongside clinical care, not in place of it.
Retention
Every officer, firefighter or dispatcher who leaves takes their training and experience with them, and the vacancy lands on the people who stay. The assessment puts your full cost of turnover in one place so it can be weighed against the cost of a program.
Defending the Budget
The conversation with city council shifts from asking for trust to presenting a case. The assessment builds the data into the process, and the program is tracked like any other operational function: PTO usage, workers' comp claims, referral willingness and retention.
What the Data Says
of U.S. local police departments employed fewer than 10 full-time-equivalent sworn officers in 2020.
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2022of fire departments in the national registry are volunteer (70.0%) or mostly volunteer (15.5%).
Source: U.S. Fire Administration, 2024In a year-long study of 473 U.S. healthcare workers, those who witnessed a potentially morally injurious event had 1.66 times the risk of intending to leave their job a year later.
Source: Usset et al., Scientific Reports, 2024For Teams Deployed Into the Field
Karen Hurley also works with emergency management agencies and with utility and disaster-response organizations that send crews into the field.
These teams work long, unpredictable deployments, often far from the office where the wellness program lives. Karen starts with how and where your people actually work, then builds support that reaches them there, including wellness app selection or custom app development for field personnel through PIF Samaritan Services.
Built For
- County and city emergency management agencies
- Utility line and field crews
- Disaster-response and recovery organizations
- Dispatch and emergency communications centers
What Leaders Work Toward
No program can promise a result, but these are the outcomes Karen builds and tracks against with every agency.
- A funded, documented wellness plan you can walk into a council or board meeting with.
- A peer support and wellness structure your people actually use.
- Behavioral health treated as an occupational risk the department plans for, not a personal issue.
- Real numbers on usage and retention behind the next budget request.
- Support that continues for retirees, not only active personnel.
Questions Chiefs and Wellness Coordinators Ask
Who can build a wellness program for my police department?
Karen Hurley, through PIF Samaritan Services, builds wellness programs for police departments, fire departments, EMS, dispatch and corrections. She is an IACP subject matter expert, a former member of Lexipol's national Wellness Team, a Utah FOP preferred provider, and has more than 20 years in public safety and legal environments.
What should a police department wellness program actually include?
A real program covers the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions of wellness and follows one sequence: assess the department's actual risk, build a customized playbook, implement it in person, then track results. Programs that skip any of those steps are the ones that sit unused.
How do I build a wellness program a department my size can defend to city council?
Start with an assessment. It produces the data and a customized playbook sized to your department, not a template built for a two-thousand-officer force, so you walk into the council meeting with a case instead of a request for trust.
We're a small or volunteer department with no wellness budget. Can Karen help?
Yes. Almost half of U.S. local police departments have fewer than 10 sworn officers, and most fire departments are volunteer or mostly volunteer, so small agencies are the norm, not the exception. Karen sizes the program to the staff and budget you have.
What is occupational risk, and why does it matter for first responder wellness?
Occupational risk means the risk is built into the job itself: repeated trauma exposure, not an occasional bad day. A wellness program designed for average workplace stress doesn't match that risk, which is why so many go unused by first responders.
What is moral injury, and how is it different from stress?
Moral injury is the weight of carrying decisions and scenes that conflict with your own values. Workplace stress usually eases with rest; moral injury often doesn't. Karen Hurley addresses it through a whole-person framework and is developing her research on it in her planned Substack, The Weight They Carry. She is not a clinician and does not provide treatment.
How is Karen Hurley different from a wellness app or a large vendor like Lexipol?
Apps and large vendors offer standardized tools and content. Karen builds a program around one agency's specific risk, implements it in person, and stays involved through tracking. Technology is part of the plan where it fits: PIF Samaritan Services can help select a wellness app or develop a custom one for field personnel.
Can Karen help us find grant funding for a wellness program?
Draft The assessment produces the documentation a funding request needs. Confirm with Karen whether she helps agencies identify or apply for wellness grants.
- Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Local Police Departments: Personnel, 2020," November 2022. bjs.ojp.gov
- U.S. Fire Administration, "National Fire Department Registry Summary," January 2024 (27,166 registered departments, about 92% of U.S. departments). usfa.fema.gov
- Usset TJ, et al., "Burnout and turnover risks for healthcare workers in the United States: downstream effects from moral injury exposure," Scientific Reports 14:24915, 2024. Population: U.S. healthcare workers; comparable longitudinal data for police and fire is still limited. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Start the Conversation
- An honest look at where your program stands
- A plan you can act on, with or without Karen
- A clear read on whether PIF, Coaching with a Karen, or both fits
- Support sized to your team's actual risk