Resilience Development in Action: First Responder Mental Health

Епизоди

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  Union Support Versus Outside Counsel For First Responders 19.08.2026 43мин

  Send us Fan Mail The hardest part of getting help in public safety is not finding resources, it’s knowing who you can trust when the stakes are your career, your reputation, and your sanity. We pick up part two with employment attorney Bridget Truxillo to talk candidly about where union support shines, where conflicts of interest can quietly derail you, and why an outside employment law perspective can be the difference between getting steamrolled and getting a fair process. We dig int...
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  When Work Becomes The Trauma 12.08.2026 34мин

  Send us Fan Mail A career can end without a single bad call. Sometimes it’s the station politics, the paper trail, and the quiet retaliation that do the damage and it can hit your mental health just as hard as anything on the street. I sit down with Bridget Truxillo, an attorney, former deputy sheriff, and former SWAT team member, to talk about what happens when the workplace becomes the stressor you can’t escape. Her story runs from patrol to undercover narcotics to SWAT, and then straight i...
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  Stop Saying Suck It Up Buttercup 05.08.2026 33мин

  Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to miss someone in pain is to only believe the “approved” version of distress. We sit down with Liana Lucine, a former UK London Met police officer and trainer, to unpack how stereotypes shape everything from mental health calls to workplace culture and even how we label victims. When anxiety, depression, grief, or trauma don’t match the mental picture we expect, the response can turn into dismissal, jokes, or silence and that’s where risk grows for first resp...
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  Resilience Grows When We Stop Treating People Like Problems 29.07.2026 30мин

  Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever wondered why some calls escalate fast while others calm down in minutes, the answer usually isn’t “more force” or “better scripts.” It’s the human skill that gets trained the least and judged the most: how we talk to people when they’re at their worst. I’m joined by Liana Lucine, a former Metropolitan Police officer in London with 18 years on the job and deep experience as a police trainer. We get honest about what frontline policing looks like beyond the clic...
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  You Can Survive The Moment Without Living In The What If 22.07.2026 39мин

  Send us Fan Mail Your body can hit full panic speeds while your brain has to make courtroom-clean decisions. That tension sits at the center of my conversation with Eric Robinson, a former pastor turned FBI agent who spent 24 years in the Bureau and served on SWAT. We get real about what it means to approach a door knowing you might meet violence, and why true calm is not bravado, it is competence built through training, repetition, and trust in your teammates. Eric walks us through a deadly...
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  How A Retired FBI Agent Stays Human In A Hard Job 15.07.2026 27мин

  Send us Fan Mail He walked away from the pulpit because the stress would not let his body rest, then spent the next two decades staring straight at humanity’s darkest corners. I’m joined by Eric Robinson, newly retired after 24 years in the FBI, to talk about resilience that’s earned, not posted. Eric shares how carrying other people’s pain as a solo pastor led to daily headaches, and why choosing a new path was a mental health decision as much as a career move. From there, we trace his unus...
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  Peer Support Without Gossip 08.07.2026 28мин

  Send us Fan Mail If peer support is supposed to be a safe place, why do so many first responders avoid it because they’re afraid their story will end up in the station, the briefing room, or the chief’s office? Stephanie Conn get blunt about the real problem behind “peer support doesn’t work” and it’s usually not the idea, it’s trust, confidentiality, and what happens when one person treats private conversations like gossip. We walk through what strong peer support programs do differently: c...
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  Making Wellness Practical For Police Fire And EMS 01.07.2026 35мин

  Send us Fan Mail The job trains you to scan for danger, move fast, and stay ready, but nobody hands you a clean off-switch when you walk back through your front door. We sit down with Dr Stephanie Conn, a former dispatcher and police officer turned first responder psychologist, to get real about what actually helps police, fire, EMS, dispatch, and corrections stay steady over the long haul. We talk about resilience as a practice, not a personality trait. That means sleep discipline, boundari...
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  What Happens After The Save 24.06.2026 36мин

  Send us Fan Mail One small action can change a whole community, and sometimes even rewrite what the next generation learns in school. We sit down with Brad and Kira Newberry to unpack the idea behind their book, The Saved Effect, and why a single rescue rarely ends when the ambulance doors close. Using the butterfly effect as a guide, we explore how “micro moments” of courage and care can ripple outward into families, careers, and public policy. We dig into a story that’s hard to forget: an ...
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  How One Cardiac Arrest Save Ripples For Decades 17.06.2026 33мин

  Send us Fan Mail You can work a cardiac arrest, get pulses back, hand the patient off, and never learn what happened next. That missing chapter messes with how we measure success, how we carry trauma, and how we stay resilient over a long career in EMS and emergency medicine. We sit down with Brad Newberry, a captain paramedic with more than 40 years in fire and EMS and the founder of a major EMS education and training center, and his daughter Kiera Newberry, an EMT and emergency room techni...
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  Trust Is Earned Before Therapy Can Work 10.06.2026 30мин

  Send us Fan Mail You can build the best peer support team on paper, fund the best wellness initiatives, and still miss the people who are hurting the most. That’s where this conversation with Dr. Stacey Raymond goes, and we don’t stay polite about it. We talk about why first responder mental health needs to start at the academy level, with a clear warning: the job will expose you to traumatic events, and it will change your sleep, your relationships, and how you see the world. We also ...
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  You Can Treat Trauma Early Without Reliving It 03.06.2026 31мин

  Send us Fan Mail A call can end, the scene can clear, and your body can still be on the call months later. We sit down with clinical psychologist Dr. Stacy Raymond to talk about what actually works for first responder mental health when the job leaves you with nightmares, intrusive images, a short fuse, and sleep that never fully comes back. We also dig into why the “tough it out” culture quietly pushes people toward avoidance and alcohol instead of recovery. We get practical about EMDR ther...
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  How A Crisis Cop Broke Through Stigma And Got Help 27.05.2026 29мин

  Send us Fan Mail A lot of first responders can talk anyone through a crisis, then go home and quietly self-destruct. That tension sits at the center of my conversation with Joe Smarro, a former cop known for crisis work who’s also honest about the parts of his life that didn’t look “resilient” at all: shame, compulsive numbing, relationship fallout, and the kind of hopelessness that puts a gun belt in the room as a real option. Joe walks me through the moment he finally chose help, not hiding...
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  How A Police Mental Health Unit De-Escalates Chaos 20.05.2026 32мин

  Send us Fan Mail A “mental health call” rarely looks like a calm conversation in a quiet office. It looks like uncertainty, pressure, split-second decisions, and a room full of risk factors that do not fit neatly into a checklist. I sit down with Joe Smarro, former Marine and former San Antonio Police Department officer who spent 11 years full-time on a mental health unit, to unpack what actually works when the goal is simple and urgent: keep everyone safe and lower the temperature fast.&nbsp...
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  How A First Responder Mental Health Podcast Grows Sustainably: 5th Anniversary Celebration 13.05.2026 22мин

  Send us Fan Mail Five years ago, I hit publish with a simple goal: make mental health easier to talk about and easier to access. Now, Resilience Development in Action is built specifically for first responder mental health, because police, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and dispatchers carry stress and trauma most people never see, then get told to just push through it. I’m sharing what’s kept this podcast steady for weekly Wednesdays, including the behind-the-scenes support that makes the ...
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  A Paramedic’s Turning Point After A Suicide Scene 06.05.2026 32мин

  Send us Fan Mail One call can change the way you breathe, drive, sleep, and even trust your own judgment. I sit down with paramedic Emma Irwin to talk through a suicide scene that hit hard, the moment she cried on scene, and the quiet belief that too many first responders carry: “I should be able to handle this.” We name what that pressure does to police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics when trauma exposure finally breaks through the professional mask. Emma walks me through what...
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  Paramedic Trauma And The Moment It Hit 29.04.2026 24мин

  Send us Fan Mail A lot of people assume first responder stress is mostly about what you see on calls. Emma Irwin, a UK paramedic who worked both London and Kent, helps us name the other half of the story: the system you work inside. We compare how ambulance “trusts” operate, what shifts when call volume spikes, how response targets change the feel of a day, and why a 30-minute transport can be a big deal when it reshapes decisions about hospitals versus community care. If you care about EMS l...
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  A Retired Officer Shares How Ayahuasca Opened The Door To Grief Healing 22.04.2026 30мин

  Send us Fan Mail The day you retire, the job doesn’t just end. Your identity can crack wide open. I sit down with Kemmi Sadler, a recently retired law enforcement professional, to talk about what it really feels like to go from “in the club” to “civilian” overnight, and why that change can pull years of grief and trauma straight to the surface. We get honest about the quiet moments after a career of composure, and the uneasy question so many first responders carry: if I’m the protector, who p...
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  A Diplomatic Security Agent On Trauma, Clearance Fear, And Getting Help 15.04.2026 26мин

  Send us Fan Mail The job can send you to the hardest places on earth, then expect you to come home and act like nothing followed you back. We talk with Kemmi Sadler, a retired supervisory special agent from the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, about what two decades of protective missions, investigations, and overseas tours can do to your inner life. From her early years in local law enforcement to contracting overseas after 9/11 and then serving across posts like Iraq, A...
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  Why First Responders And Clinicians Still Need Human Supervision 08.04.2026 54мин

  Send us Fan Mail Supervision used to be something you could reach for without fear or apology, and a lot of us built our careers on that kind of steady mentorship. Recording with Dennis Sweeney, Chris Gordon, Bob Cherney, Andy Kang, and Pat Rice, we get real about what’s changed in mental health and first responder support, and what it costs when clinicians and teams try to do complex work in isolation. We dig into why the supervision relationship matters so much for crisis intervention, add...