In the fall of 2022, as Marc Roskamp prepared to take over the helm at the St. Thomas Police Service, he shone a light on a critical focal point.
“From a public safety perspective, I believe so strongly in the health of the community and its citizens. And one of my main priorities will also be to build up the resiliency of our members of the police family.
“I’ve said this before, if we’re healthy on the inside, we will be healthy on the outside to deliver services to the community.”
Three years later, that emphasis on the well-being of both sworn and civilian members of the St. Thomas Police Service was recognized when what evolved into The Wellness Navigation Project under the leadership of St. Thomas native Dr. Kym Briggs and Chief Roskamp was honoured by Blue Line Magazine as one of the Top 10 policing feature stories of 2025.
Blue Line is Canada’s national law enforcement magazine.
Brittani Schroeder, the editor of Blue Line Magazine, wrote the article.
It showcased The Wellness Navigation Project as “A mission to normalize mental health in law enforcement.”
Last month, myFM sat down with Briggs, who spent 15 years with the Canadian Mental Health Association and is searching for holistic approaches to address mental health challenges.
Briggs continued, “So what that tells us is that all of these recent interventions in mental health and first responder work aren’t working as we’d hoped.
Briggs serves as the Director of Mental Health Strategy & Innovation at CallBox & Co., with the aim of “Ensuring that today’s first responders stay connected to the lifelines that protect their mental health and overall well-being.”
Briggs observed, “One thing my research has told me is that families are struggling. It’s another area that we haven’t connected with, where there are lots of family members who could be better able to support their first responder loved one if they had better tools and strategies.
“And so I went back to school and worked on a doctoral degree. And the topic was really, really easy. Police mental health. And thankfully, the St. Thomas Police Service allowed me to partner with them.”
Briggs stresses that the success of the Wellness Navigation Project is driven by the members of the St. Thomas Police Service.
“Which is different than most other work that’s been done in the past in other services. I’m a registered social worker, and prior to this life, I was a frontline social worker here in St. Thomas, working in courts for the CMHA.
“And I really believe in working on this hierarchy a little bit in emergency services and really valuing the voice of lived experience and the voice of the people who will be most impacted.
“And so those are the frontline people.”
What does the Wellness Navigation Project look like inside the police station at 45 CASO Crossing?
She continued, “It normalizes walking through the mental health door, if you will. And so what we’ve done is we’ve aligned with really great counsellors who are trauma-specific, first responder-specific counsellors. Who already see many of the people who work there.
“And so I connected with counsellors who were already trusted. And we worked to bring them right into the building just to make access easier, and then to normalize that experience of going to counselling and having appointments routinely.”
Briggs cautioned, “We’re facing a crisis in policing. People are leaving. They’re not applying in the way that they used to. And we’re facing a crisis. And we have to do something, or our organizations are going to be empty or really struggling in a short time.”
The seed for how police services across the country might address mental well-being going forward was planted right here at the St. Thomas Police Service with the cultivation of The Wellness Navigation Project.
Written by Ian McCallum
