Slay The Toxic Dragon: Police Leadership Impacting Member Wellness

Syd Gravel is a former staff sergeant with thirty-one years of experience with the Ottawa Police Service. He is one of the founding fathers of Robin's Blue Circle, a post-shooting trauma team of peers, established in 1988, and is still actively involved with them. Syd co-developed this group when the need for peer support became evident for officers involved in fatal or near fatal work-related events. This group has assisted hundreds of officers from all across Canada since 1988 and continues to do so today.Syd was diagnosed with PTSD in 1987 and has reached the state of consistent and sustained positive growth with his injury. In 1999, he was awarded the twenty-year Police Exemplary Service Medal and, in 2003, the twenty-five-year Police Exemplary Service Bar. In 2007, he was nominated by his peers and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police to be inducted into the Order of Merit in Policing, Canada. In 2020, he was awarded the Order of Ottawa for his lifelong service in trauma management and peer support development in the national and international policing communities. During his thirteen years of retirement, he has devoted all his time and energy to writing, speaking and consulting on trauma management and peer support systems for a number of police services, not only in Canada but also in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. He has appeared countless times on all forms of media. He has written and published 56 Seconds, How to Survive PTSD and Build Peer Support, and co-authored the book Walk the Talk with staff sergeant (ret'd) Brad McKay. This is Syd's fourth book on mental wellness, with Brad McKay and Dr. Barbara Anscheutz, to address toxicity in the workplace.In 2014, Syd developed a three-day curriculum to train peers in Canada. It was modeled after the guidelines set out by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. He is currently co-leading the Peer and Trauma Support Systems (P.A.T.S.S.) Team for the Mood Disorders Society of Canada. He also volunteered for two years as a street-level peer facilitator for Soldiers Helping Soldiers in Ottawa's homeless community. He currently volunteers as a board director with Community Housing Renfrew and as a front-line peer supporter with the Ottawa Police peer group. He has developed the three-day peer training curriculum for Transition to Communities and the content for the twenty-hour, on-line trauma management course for Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He is also co-developing the four-day train the trainer curriculum for Oscar-Kilo, the National Police Wellness Group for the United Kingdom. Syd is the co-founder of Badge of Life Canada, in 2012, and proudly served as a senior police advisor for that organization for nine years. He is an advisor for the Haven Group. He volunteers hundreds of hours annually to support these two organizations in their endeavours to assist members from policing and corrections. He was the Canadian representative on the executive committee for the Global Mental Health Peer Network (GMHPN) from 2018 to 2021, and the 2020 regional representative for the Americas for the GMHPN.In 2016, he was nominated by the Mental Health Commission of Canada as a Canadian Champion of Mental Health.On a personal level, Syd is the 2018 Central Canada Gold Medal holder in Powerlifting. His spouse, Judy Gravel, is the 2019 Silver Medal holder for the Canadian Powerlifting Union Nationals held in Ottawa. At age sixty-nine, Syd is training to attend and compete in the Nationals and Worlds in Powerlifting in 2022 when he will be seventy. He has been married for forty-five years, is father to two sons and grandfather to three lovely grandchildren.