FDL County Sheriff’s Office Forming Peer Support Team

The Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office is forming a peer support team to help its employees work through the challenges of the law enforcement profession

Lieutenant Eric Halbach with the Sheriff’s Office tells KFIZ News the idea for forming a peer support team started about two years ago, and was done as a response to an increase in law enforcement suicides in America over the past decade.

“What we’ve learned through this process is that law enforcement officers like to talk to other law enforcement officers,” Halbach said. “So we felt it was necessary to try to form this team, so that we have employees that are able to talk to each other, and have the proper training to help us through the hard things that we see and the stuff that we deal with on a daily basis.

Halbach explains there will be around 18 deputies that are part of the program, split between those on the road and those in the jail.

He adds that the officers involved in the peer support team will be able to discuss a wide variety of topics, from different types of calls and cases, to handling retirement from law enforcement.