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.
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Exposure to trauma is a predictable part of public safety work. Personnel routinely encounter crisis, danger, and human suffering as part of doing the job.
Historically, protective systems have depended on individuals recognizing distress and asking for help, resulting in uneven safeguards shaped by local practices rather than the realities of the work.
Without a national standard, expectations for protecting the workforce vary widely. A national standard establishes a consistent baseline for organizational responsibility, ensuring protective systems are built into operations rather than dependent on individual disclosure or discretionary adoption.
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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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The American Board of First Responder Behavioral Healthcare (FRBH) establishes nationally consistent, system-level standards defining organizational responsibility for protecting trauma-exposed public-safety occupations.
FRBH accreditation provides independent verification of conformance with those standards, consistent with recognized national and international accreditation models, and is governed through processes separate from standards development.
Accreditation evaluates organizational systems—not individual clinicians, clinical outcomes, or 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 expands access to national accreditation standards by reducing financial barriers for eligible public-safety agencies.
The Fund supports rural, volunteer, and resource-constrained organizations—particularly those with frequent and unavoidable occupational exposure—ensuring participation in nationally recognized, system-level behavioral health standards is not limited by size, location, or budget.
Access Fund support preserves the independence and rigor of national standards and does not involve clinical services or influence accreditation outcomes.
National Standards and Accreditation
Scope Notice: FRBH sets national standards for how organizations are structured to protect responder behavioral health. FRBH does not evaluate clinical care, provide treatment guidance, or accredit mental health programs or providers. FRBH is non-clinical and focuses exclusively on organizational safety systems—not healthcare services.