§50902 Best Practices and Support

Summary

The Attorney General, working with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, must create a report on best practices and professional standards for peer support counseling programs for first responder agencies. The report must be finished not later than 2 years after November 18, 2021. It must give advice on setting up and running peer support programs, training and certifying peer support specialists, a code of ethics, recommended continuing education, how confidentiality must be explained to participants, and information on program types, differences across kinds of first responders, and the role senior responders play. The Attorney General must then put the report on the Department of Justice website and publish a list of peer support specialist training programs there. Defined terms in the law include first responder (same meaning as “public safety officer” in section 10284), first responder agency (a Federal, State, local, or Tribal agency that uses first responders), peer support counseling program (counseling by a peer support specialist to a first responder), peer support participant (a first responder who gets that counseling), and peer support specialist (a first responder trained to give peer support counseling and emotional support and designated by an agency to provide those services).