The National Standard for Responder Behavioral Health Protection
The American Board of First Responder Behavioral Healthcare (FRBH) is a national nonprofit standards-setting and accreditation body that accredits public safety agencies based on whether they have organizational protections in place that automatically activate appropriate behavioral health support when needed, rather than relying on individual self-disclosure.
FRBH’s standards focus on how public safety organizations are structured, governed, and operated to protect their workforce from foreseeable line-of-duty trauma exposure, treating behavioral health as an organizational safety responsibility rather than an individual burden.
In plain terms: FRBH evaluates whether public safety organizations have built-in systems that support responder behavioral health automatically, instead of waiting for individuals to ask for help.
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Responder trauma is a predictable and cumulative occupational exposure inherent to public safety work.
Historically, many approaches to responder behavioral health have relied on individual self-disclosure, crisis recognition, or personal initiative. This has resulted in uneven protection, where access to support depends on local practices, leadership priorities, or available resources rather than on the known risks of the job.
In the absence of a national standard, organizational protections vary widely, leaving workers exposed to preventable risk based on geography or agency capacity rather than consistent safety expectations.
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The American Board of First Responder Behavioral Healthcare (FRBH) establishes the national standard for organizational behavioral health protection in public safety—defining how agencies are expected to manage and control predictable behavioral health risk associated with trauma-exposed work.
The FRBH National Standard places primary responsibility for system design, activation, and oversight at the organizational level, requiring system-activated safeguards embedded into routine operations and governance—without reliance on crisis recognition, self-disclosure, or individual help-seeking.
Grounded in occupational safety and risk-management principles, the standard treats trauma exposure as an inherent job hazard requiring durable, organization-level protection.
This is not a program.
It is a national framework for governing, implementing, and sustaining organizational behavioral health protection as a safety function.FRBH accredits organizational systems and governance—not clinicians, treatment decisions, or clinical service delivery.
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FRBH serves organizations and stakeholders responsible for establishing, overseeing, and advancing system-based behavioral health protection for trauma-exposed occupations, including:
Public safety agencies seeking nationally recognized accreditation for responder behavioral health protection
Government and policy leaders responsible for workforce protection standards, governance, and oversight
Funders and strategic partners supporting the adoption, sustainability, and independent verification of national standards for responder behavioral health protection
FRBH does not provide services to individual responders, deliver clinical care, or offer training, implementation, or consulting programs.
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American Board of First Responder Behavioral Healthcare (FRBH) accredits public safety agencies that demonstrate conformance with nationally defined, system-level requirements for organizational behavioral health protection.
Accreditation provides independent verification that organizational protections are designed, governed, and sustained in alignment with nationally defined safety and accountability standards.
FRBH accreditation verifies that organizational systems are:
Governed and accountable at the organizational level
Integrated into public safety operations
Designed to function proactively and consistently over time
FRBH accreditation is voluntary, independent, and non-governmental, and serves as the national benchmark for behavioral health protection in public safety.
Accreditation does not evaluate individual clinicians, clinical outcomes, or specific treatment modalities.
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Sustained Functional Resilience™ (SFR) is a system-activated behavioral health protection framework for high-risk, trauma-exposed occupations.
SFR frames behavioral health as organizational safety infrastructure, emphasizing automatic activation, governance, and sustained accountability aligned with operational realities.
Elements of SFR informed early system-level thinking alongside other evidence-aligned occupational prevention models.
FRBH accreditation is framework-neutral. No framework—including SFR—is required, endorsed, or confers any accreditation advantage.
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FRBH advances nationally consistent, evidence-aligned organizational system design for managing responder behavioral health risk by:
Translating established research and recognized practice into operationally national standards
Aligning accreditation criteria with recognized behavioral health evidence, occupational safety research, and public safety doctrine
Informing state and federal public safety policy through technical standards interpretation and system-design perspective
Integrating operational leadership experience, organizational governance principles, and behavioral health expertise
FRBH does not conduct original clinical, academic, or scientific research. Its role is to define, maintain, and accredit organizational standards grounded in existing evidence and public safety practice.
This approach supports nationwide consistency and adoption of responder-specific organizational benchmarks without duplicating the research functions of academic, governmental, or scientific institutions.
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The FRBH Access Fund supports broader adoption of national accreditation standards by reducing financial barriers for eligible public safety agencies.
The Fund is designed to facilitate participation by rural, volunteer, and resource-constrained organizations, ensuring that access to nationally recognized, system-level behavioral health benchmarks is not limited by organizational size, geography, or funding capacity.
Through the Access Fund, FRBH advances equitable access to accreditation while preserving the independence, rigor, and integrity of national standards.
National Standards and Accreditation
Responder trauma is predictable. Systems should be too.
National standards ensure behavioral health protection is embedded into organizational infrastructure—designed to function consistently over time, without reliance on crisis recognition, self-disclosure, or individual action.