Services for organizations
Your provider of choice for preventative mental health initiatives in Ontario
Let the Breakwater team help enhance your organization’s resilience to the impacts of operational stress with our innovative, research-based mental health training, early intervention and support initiatives.
Knowing the toll that chronic, unaddressed stress can take on individuals and their services, our approach is heavily oriented toward prevention. We believe that it is far better to prevent mental health problems than it is to treat them after they have developed.
We offer a variety of services, fully customized to your organization’s needs.
- Consultation and training
- Peer support team services
- Employee psychological screening
- Preventative mental health checks
- Crisis support and rapid response capability
- Before Operational Stress (BOS) training
Consultation and training
Our team is available for consultation and training for service members, management, and peer support team leaders and members. We can provide training on topics related to prevention, early intervention, and treatment of operational stress injuries (OSIs) — including PTSD, depression, and anxiety disorders — as well as related issues like general wellness and stress management, substance abuse, and relationships.
Peer support team services
Peer support is invaluable in high-stress occupations. We can help your organization launch or grow its own peer support team, by assisting with the selection process and conducting training in fundamental skills. We also offer services to support peer support program administration, provide clinical back-up for particularly difficult calls or situations, assist with group debriefs after critical incidents, and conduct regular mental health checks for peer support team members.
Employee psychological screening
With our extensive knowledge and experience working with individuals and organizations in the field of operational stress, we are experts in employee screening for first responders.
We offer psychological screening services — including testing and interviewing — to assist your organization in the hiring process, ensuring that the individuals that you hire are best suited to the demands of the job.
Preventative mental health checks
We work directly with services to provide confidential mental health checks for their frontline workers. These periodic assessments provide a valuable baseline for members’ psychological health, which can be tracked over time to alert them to early signs of psychological stress. We administer a comprehensive questionnaire measuring a variety of domains in order to evaluate employees’ resilience and possible emerging mental health concerns. Each mental health check also includes a one-hour session with a clinician at Breakwater, following which the service member is provided with feedback and suggested next steps.
Crisis support and rapid response capability
Response time is critical. We contract directly with first responder organizations to provide rapid-response following situations involving acute operational stress — such as “bad calls” or other crisis situations — so that help is always close at hand.
One-to-one crisis response
We offer rapid crisis response for service members who require support following a critical incident (such as a bad call) or personal crisis (for example, the death of a loved one). This service is provided by one of our highly trained peer support consultants, who have extensive crisis response experience, working in collaboration with a psychologist from our team. The one-to-one rapid response service can include up to two one-hour appointments, which can act as a bridge to further professional help if required. Appointments may be in-person or virtual, depending on the circumstances.
Debriefing following critical incidents
Our team can facilitate and deliver debriefing sessions for first responders following critical incidents/crises that impact multiple members or crews. Debriefing sessions are led by a psychologist and an experienced peer consultant. Typically, debriefing sessions take place three to five days following a critical incident, although the time frame can be flexible depending on the circumstances.
Before Operational Stress (BOS) training
Breakwater is the licensed Before Operational Stress (BOS) provider for Southwestern Ontario and parts of Northern Ontario, and currently offers virtual and/or in-person groups.
BOS is a resiliency-based program that empowers public safety personnel to take charge of their mental health. Through a compelling mix of informational and experiential learning, BOS prepares participants to anticipate and mitigate the effects of operational stress. It teaches them to “keep tabs” on their mental health status and to use tools to manage the stresses that have built up. The result is a workforce that is psychologically attuned, flexible, and cushioned against the most destructive impacts of on-the-job stress.