Shawn O’Reilly, WWC Ambassador, St. John’s Newfoundland
Superintendent Shawn O’Reilly joined the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in April, 1986 and is currently the Officer in Charge of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). He is a graduate of the Atlantic Police Academy in PEI. He has certificates in Police Leadership (Administration) from Dalhousie University and the Memorial University Supervisory Leadership Program. He also completed courses at the Canadian, Ontario and Toronto Police Colleges.
He served the first 18 years of his career as a member of Operational Patrol Services. In that role he witnessed numerous traumatic events and saw the negative psychological impact those events had on many of his fellow police officers and other 1st responders.
From 2007–2015 he was the Employee Assistance Program (EAP)/Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Coordinator for the RNC. This was a secondary role to his full time police officer duties. It was through his EAP/CISM duties that he recognized the true impact Operational Stress Injuries (OSI) were having on a number of RNC members. Realizing more had to be done he collaborated with the EAP Division of the NL Provincial Government, the RNC Executive and the RNC Police Association to develop OSI Awareness education. Following that came the introduction of Road to Mental Readiness (R2MR). He still works behind the scenes as a mental health advocate and resource for the current EAP/CISM coordinator and RNC management team.
Shawn is from a community north of St. John’s called Torbay and he currently resides in St. John’s with his wife, Kelly.
