Officer Wellness and Mental Health
Grant Program
Reporting Guide
Instructions for Annual Report
and Final Impact Report
February 2023
Page i
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 BSCC CONTACT INFORMATION .................................................................................. 1 SECURITY INFORMATION ............................................................................................ 1 DUE DATES .................................................................................................................... 1 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS ........................................................................................... 1 COMPLETING THE ANNUAL REPORTS ....................................................................... 2 SECTION 1: GRANTEE INFORMATION ..................................................................... 2 SECTION 2: PRE-OFFICER WELLNESS GRANT INFORMATION ............................ 3 SECTION 3: GRANT IMPLEMENTATION ................................................................... 2 COMPLETING THE FINAL IMPACT REPORT ............................................................... 4 SECTION 1: GENERAL INFORMATION ..................................................................... 4 SECTION 2: PROGRAM DESCRIPTION .................................................................... 5 SECTION 3: WELLNESS MEASURES........................................................................ 5 SECTION 4: PROGRAM IMPACT ............................................................................... 7 SECTION 5: OVERALL IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE ....................................... 9 SECTION 6: EXPENDITURE REPORT ..................................................................... 10
INTRODUCTION
Law enforcement agencies that receive Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds are required to submit a final impact of funding report and expenditure report to the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) by December 1, 20251. The purpose of collecting this information is to demonstrate the impact these funds made on improving officer wellness. These reports will be shared with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
This document provides instructions and descriptions about the types of information you will need to submit in the final impact report and expenditure report.
BSCC CONTACT INFORMATION
Direct any questions regarding the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant program to data collection procedures to [email protected].
SECURITY INFORMATION
The impact report and expenditure report will be submitted via a form in Smartsheet.
Information on Smartsheet security measures can be found at:
https://www.smartsheet.com/trust/security.
DUE DATES
The Annual Reports must be submitted by December 1, 2023 and December 1, 2024.
The Final Impact Report, which includes the expenditure report, must be submitted by December 1, 2025.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
Both the Annual Reports and the Final Impact Report will be submitted via a form in Smartsheet. You will not need a Smartsheet account, special software or licenses to submit any of these reports. The forms must be completed and submitted in its entirety in a single session. With this in mind, it is recommended that the narrative responses first be drafted in Word format and pasted into the form, as you will be unable to save your responses in the form and return at a later time. Each text box is limited to 4,000 characters, including spaces, or approximately one single-spaced page.
1 Established in the 2022 Budget Act (Assembly Bill 178, Chapter 45, Statutes of 2022)
The expenditure report will be completed in a pre-formatted Excel file, which will be submitted via Smartsheet by using the attach file feature at the end of the Final Impact Report form.
COMPLETING THE ANNUAL REPORTS
The annual reports are a brief status report on spending the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant program funds. Each of the fields which comprise the Annual Reports are described in detail below.
SECTION 1: GRANTEE INFORMATION
Agency
Identify the law enforcement agency that is the recipient of the grant funds.
Reporting Year
Select the year for which you are reporting, either
Year 1: January 1, 2023 – October 31, 2023 (Due December 1, 2023) Year 2: November 1, 2023 – October 31, 2024 (Due December 1, 2024) Preparer’s Information
Complete four fields (Prepared by, Preparer’s Title, Phone Number, and Email Address) to provide the name, title and contact information for the individual completing the report. This information is necessary so we can reach out to this individual if we have any follow-up questions.
Do you require any technical assistance?
If technical assistance is needed, select “yes”. A text box will appear requesting you to describe your technical assistance needs. If no technical assistance is needed, select “no” and no additional information is required.
SECTION 2: GRANT IMPLEMENTATION
Please report the total amount of O fficer Wellness and Mental Health Grant Program funds spent in the reporting year?
For this question, only report the amount of funds spent during the reporting period selected in Section 1.
Please report the total amount of Officer Wellness and Mental Hea lth Grant Program funds spent.
This question will only be asked in the second annual report. It should be the total amount of grant funds spent since the beginning of the grant (i.e., the total amount in the previous question for year 1 and year 2).
Please select the category or categories which best describe how the money was spent.
For this response, the categories include: Physical health, Mental and/or Emotional Health, or Other. More than one category may be selected. For each category selected you will be asked to provide a brief description of the activity(ies) or project(s) implemented.
Please report the number of officers who benefited from the use of these funds during the reporting year.
For this response, you should include the total number of officers who participated in an activity or program, had access to equipment, or directly benefited another way from the Officer Wellness and Mental Health grant funds.
This number should be an unduplicated count, in that if an officer attended three times, they are only reported once, not three times. If 45 officers attended peer support programs across the period of the grant, then report 45, not the number of support meetings they attended.
SECTION 3: PRE-OFFICER WELLNESS GRANT INFORMATION
This section requests information about any officer wellness programs that were implemented within the agency prior to receiving the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds. As such, this section will only appear in the Year 1 Annual Report.
Did your agency have an officer wellness program established prior to this funding? This question requires a yes/no response. If the response is “No”, no additional information is required for Section 2. If the response is “Yes”, you will be asked a few follow-up questions about the officer wellness program established prior to receiving these funds.
Please provide a brief synopsis of the program contents.
For this question, provide a brief description of components of officer wellness program that were established prior to receiving this funding. For example, a mental health professional was employed part-time by the agency to meet with officers.
In your previous officer wellness program, how has your agency measure d success or areas needing improvement?
Provide any measures that were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the previous officer wellness program. For example, increased positive community engagement, reduction in: work related injuries, sick days used, citizen complaints, days needed to recover from work related injuries, etc.).
Did your agency expand an existing officer wellness program with this funding? This question requires a yes/no response. If the response is “No”, no additional information is required for Section 2. If the response is “Yes”, you will be asked to describe the expansion.
COMPLETING THE FINAL IMPACT REPORT
Each of the fields which comprise the Final Impact Report are described in detail below.
SECTION 1: GENERAL INFORMATION
Agency Information
In this section, complete each field to identify the law enforcement agency that was the recipient of the grant funds, the individual, and their contact information, who is submitting the report. The name and contact information of the individual who prepared and submitted the report must be included, as this will be the individual the BSCC will reach out to if there are any questions about the final impact report.
Program Focus
For the purposes of the impact report, BSCC divided Officer Wellness into the following three areas of Program Focus:
• Physical Health: fitness programs, purchase of exercise equipment, and nutrition programs
• E motional and/or Mental Health: peer support programs, a mental health counselor or psychologist, coping skills education, mindfulness training. • Oth er: financial literacy program, any other program which does not fall under physical health or emotional and/or mental health.
In this section, identify the area(s) of Program Focus in which the grant funds were applied. If funds were distributed across more than one area of Program Focus, select all that apply.
For each Program Focus area selected, three distinct types of information will be requested. These are:
• P rogram Description (Section 2)
• Wellness Measures (Section 3)
• Program Impact (Section 4)
You will need to complete Sections 2 – 4 for each Program Focus area identified in the item above. For example, if Physical Health and Other are selected as areas of Program Focus, the form will include fields to request information related to:
1) Program Description, Wellness Measures, and Program Impact for the “Physical Health” Program Focus area.
2) Program Description, Wellness Measures, and Program Impact for the “Other” Program Focus area.
If only one Program Focus area is selected, Sections 2 – 4 will only appear once which corresponds to the Program Focus area selected.
SECTION 2: PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
The two questions under this section give you the opportunity to describe the program(s) implemented and corresponding goal(s) using the grant funds.
Provide a detailed description of how the grant program funds were used to improve officers’ [Physical Health; Mental and/or Emotional Health; Other].
When providing a description of the program(s) implemented, provide as much detail as possible including how it was designed to improve officer wellness, the duration of the program, and how it was implemented.
Identify at leas t one specific goal you planned to ach ieve with the use of the funds to improve officers’ [Physical Health; Mental and/or Emotional Health; Other].
Identify at least one goal for each program implemented. For example, if a peer support program was implemented, one goal could have been to reduce officer stress levels.
SECTION 3: WELLNESS MEASURES
The items in this section ask about how program effectiveness and impact were measured.
Selecting measures used to assess program effectiveness and impact This field provides a list of possible measures to assess the effectiveness and impact of the program(s). These are not required measures. Many of the measures listed are ones that are already collected by law enforcement agencies (e.g., sick days used, retention and recruiting rates). The measures selected should be ones that would be expected to change as a result of the wellness program and tie back to the goal(s) identified in the previous section. For example, if a peer support program was implemented, physical fitness measures, such as number of push-ups, would not be expected to change. However, it would be reasonable to expect that self-reported measures of stress would change after participating in the program. These measures are program/agency defined and measured.
Keep in mind, it is best practice to have multiple measures for each program; if you only select one, it may not be sensitive enough to detect the impact (e.g., if you implement a program to reduce stress, number of sick days used may not detect the effect, but self- reported levels of stress might, or vice versa). As such, agencies are encouraged to select and report more than one measure per program.
Indicating whether a pre -post assessment or control group was used to evaluate prog ram effectiveness and impact
When evaluating program effectiveness, there are two common approaches: pre-post assessments and control groups. A different approach can be used for each measure
identified in the previous item. Identify which approach or approaches were used to evaluate possible differences in the measures. Below is a summary of the two approaches, including advantages and disadvantages of each.
Pre-post-assessment: measures are taken before the program starts and at least one more time either during the program or after program completion. The pre- and post- measures are compared.
• Example: A mindfulness training program was implemented to reduce anxiety in officers. Officers completed an anxiety assessment before the program started and again after completing the mindfulness training. If mindfulness was effective, anxiety levels should be lower after completing the training compared to before the training.
• Advantages
o Easy to implement, especially if using a measure that is already tracked, such as number of sick days used.
o Since it is the same individuals, there is no need to worry about differences in the measures due to individual variation (e.g., individuals who participate in the mindfulness program may have higher levels of anxiety than those who do not participate which is why they wanted to participate in the program).
• Disadvantages
o If measures are not collected or available before the program started, this approach cannot be used.
o Something unrelated to the program can happen after the training starts that can affect scores (e.g., an officer is shot on the job after the mindfulness program starts, it may lead to increased anxiety).
Control group: measures are taken at the end of the program for those who participated in the program, and those who did not enroll in the program. The two measures are compared.
• Example: a fitness program is implemented for some officers to increase strength. At the end of the fitness program, the number of sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups for each officer who participated is recorded. The number of sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups for officers who did not participate is recorded and compared to the numbers of those who did participate. If the fitness program was effective at increasing officers’ strength, those who participated should be able to do more sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups when compared to the officers who did not participate.
• Advantages
o Useful if unable or did not collect measures before program implementation
o Useful if the individuals in the two groups have similar characteristics
o Do not have to worry about an outside event occurring during the program that could affect the outcome because all measures are taken at the end of the program.
• Disadvantage
o Any differences between groups could be due to individual variation in the two groups (e.g., the officers who participated in the fitness program were already stronger than the officers who did not participate).
If using a pre-post assessment, indicate the time periods/duration being compared.
When using a pre-post assessment, measures need to be obtained, at a minimum, before the program starts and at the conclusion of the program. However, additional measures may be made throughout the duration of the program. Additional measures during the program may help to separate effects of an unrelated event, should that occur, from the effects of the program.
If using a control group method, describe the relevant chara cteristics of the individuals in the control group and those participating in the program.
To minimize the effect that individual variation may have on your group that participates and those in the control group, it can be beneficial to ensure that those individuals in the control group have similar characteristics to those participating in the program. For example, if a fitness program is being offered and the participants are more likely to work out regularly before the program starts, it may be beneficial to seek out individuals who regularly work out in the control group. Age and gender may be other factors that you want to be similar in your control group.
Describe how the above selected measures were expected to change based on the project implemented and the goal(s).
For this section, include a description of the measure, if it is not something commonly understood (e.g., if officers are asked to complete a stress assessment before and after the program, explain what the scores mean, such as a higher score indicates higher levels of stress). Below is an example of what a response may look like in this section. “The funds were spent to develop an exercise program within the department. The goal of this program was to improve the strength and physical fitness of officers. By having officers participate in the 6-month exercise program, it is expected that officers will be stronger and more physically fit. It is expected that the number of sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups will be higher after completing the exercise program when compared to the number of sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups before the program was implemented. It is also expected that officers will be able to run a mile more quickly at the end of the program relative to before the program was implemented.” SECTION 4: PROGRAM IMPACT
This section focuses on demonstrating the effectiveness and impact of the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds.
Report the total number of officers who benefited from the [Physical Health; Mental and/or Emotional Health; Other] program.
This number should be an unduplicated count, in that if an officer attended three times, they are only reported once, not three times. If 45 officers attended peer support programs across the period of the grant, then report 45, not the number of support meetings they attended.
Report pre- and post- measures and/or treatment and control group measures.
For each of the measures selected above, report the pre- and post- measures or treatment group and control group measures in summary format. This could be:
• A total count, examples include
o The total number of new recruits in the year before and the year after the officer wellness program was implemented.
• A n average, examples include
o The average number of sick days used in the year before and the year after the officer wellness program was implemented.
o The average level of stress on a standardized stress assessment before the officer wellness program was implemented and again six months after the program was implemented.
• A difference, examples include
o The difference between the number of sit-ups, pull-ups and push-ups officers can do after implementing a physical fitness program relative to before it started.
• A rate/percentage
o The retention rate increased 50% after implementing the officer wellness program.
• Any other metric(s) that you measured to assess the impact of the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds.
Describe wh at you found (changes in measures), wheth er they demonstrate progress made towards goal(s).
Provide a written summary of what you reported in the previous item. Additionally, describe whether they demonstrate progress made towards the goal(s) identified. For example, if you found that the average stress level of officers was lower after a mindfulness training relative to before, you may conclude that the goal to reduce stress levels in officers was achieved by implementing the mindfulness program.
Provide possible explanations as to why progress was/was not made towards goal(s).
Based on the responses in the previous two questions, provide possible explanations for the finding(s). If progress was made toward achieving the goal(s), provide an explanation as to why (i.e., how did the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds lead to the finding(s)).
If progress was not made toward achieving the goal(s), provide an explanation as to why the expected findings were not observed. Are there other factors that may have influenced the findings? For example, if the program was designed to reduce on-the-job stress levels, and there was an officer involved shooting shortly before stress levels were assessed the second time, it may affect the findings. Are there factors related to the evaluation of the program that may have impacted the findings, such as not enough time to fully assess the program impact or the measures selected may not have been sensitive enough to detect the change.
Describe any additional impacts b eyond the measures identified that were observed, either formally or informally, as a result of the use of these funds.
These can be both positive and negative impacts. It is important to note both positive and negative impacts so positive impacts can be enhanced, and negative impacts can be addressed/eliminated in future iterations of the program.
SECTION 5: OVERALL IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE
In this section, describe your overall experience with implementing the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant program, regardless of the area(s) of Program Focus. Provide as much detail as possible. This information may be beneficial to other law enforcement agencies who are interested in implementing similar Officer Wellness programs.
Did your agency spend all of the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant funds? This question requires a yes/no response. If you respond “No”, you will be asked to describe the challenges encountered that prevented your agency from spending the funds.
Did you have enough funds to implement the program you wish you could have? This question requires a yes/no response. Regardless of response, please provide a brief explanation of your answer to the question.
Describe the challenges encountered while implementing the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant program, and how you overcame these challenges.
The response to this question should focus on the implementation challenges. Any challenges related to funding should be described in the previous two questions.
Provide any recommendations and lessons learned for other agencies who may consider implementing this type of program in the future.
Provide a detailed description of any recommendations and lessons learned through the implementation process of your officer wellness grant program, so that it can be shared with others who may implement similar programs. What do you wish someone had told you before you started this officer wellness program?
Describe your plans to continue to optimize the physical, emotional, and ment al health of officers. Doe these plans include working with the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST)?
Provide a detailed description of how your agency plans to continue to ensure the physical, emotional, and mental health wellness of your officers.
SECTION 6: EXPENDITURE REPORT
As part of the Final Impact Report, agencies are required to submit an expenditure report detailing how the funding was used. An Expenditure Report Excel file will be provided to each agency which must be completed and attached to the Final Impact Report form. The form cannot be submitted without the Excel file attached. The Excel file contains several tabs; instructions for each of the tabs are provided below.
Each time the Excel file is opened, a prompt will appear asking for a password. The password is the grant agreement number (e.g., 990-19, include the -, do not include BSCC). The Expenditure Report has specific functions which require macros to be enabled. A macro is a series of commands, such as calculations, that are stored within the document for tasks performed repeatedly. In most cases, Excel will prompt the grantee to enable macros. When this prompt appears, select Enable Editing then Enable Content. Enabling macros for the Expenditure Report will not compromise the security of the local system nor the security of the agency's network.
Advance Payment
This first tab is a summary page which includes the agency name and address, contract number, and the amount of grant funds received. Review this information to ensure its accuracy. The funds will be distributed in one advance payment, so the Grant Award Balance should be $0.
Invoice 1
The Invoice 1 tab allows grantees to enter data into the green-shaded fields. Only complete the green fields. For all fields reporting a dollar amount, round to the nearest whole dollar; do not enter decimals.
While there is no requirement to submit the proposed budget to the BSCC, it is best practice to establish a budget for a project prior to implementation. As such, the Budget column should be completed prior to implementing the Officer Wellness and Mental Health Grant program. Include the dollar amount budgeted for each of the Line Items listed in the first column. If the Line Items are not relevant to your program, enter $0. As the dollar amounts are entered in the Budget column, a total should auto-calculate at the bottom of the budget row. The total amount budgeted should not exceed your grant award amount. Additionally, they should carry over to the Balance column, including the total.
At the conclusion of the project, the Expenditures for Reporting Period column should be completed. For each of the line items in the first column, report the actual amount
spent in the Expenditures for Reporting Period column. These values will be subtracted from the Budget column and reflected in the Balance column. If all of the funds were used, the Total at the bottom of the Balance column should be zero, which will be reflected by a “-“ in that cell.
Beginning on line 33 is the Expenditure Description section. For each dollar amount entered as an expenditure, enter a brief but detailed description. Your expenditures should correlate to the activities described in the Final Impact Report. You may provide additional information in the Comments field, if needed.
Beginning on line 43, the individual who prepared the invoice should be listed. The Authorized Financial Officer cannot prepare invoices. The individual who prepares invoices will provide their contact information and the date the invoice was prepared under the PERSON PREPARING REPORT section. Then, forward the Expenditure Report to the Authorized Financial Officer for review and approval.
The Authorized Financial Officer is the Financial Officer listed in the Grant Agreement, STD 213 and/or Grantee Contact Information Sheet, Form 227. The Authorized Financial Officer cannot be the Project Director or the individual preparing the invoice.
The Authorized Financial Officer must review each line item expenditure and description. Then, approve the invoice by checking the certification box and providing their contact information and the date of approval.
Once the Expenditure Report has been approved by the Authorized Financial Officer, it should be attached to the Final Impact Report form and submitted with the completed form.
Do not use the SUBMIT button in the Expenditure Report to submit the invoice.