Mike Peterson joins us to discuss his military service, career in law enforcement, and shares his personal journey through trauma and loss to wellness.

Mike is now a mindfulness coach, his passionate belief in the benefits of mindfulness was evident as he explained how the process can increase resiliency, performance, and well-being in first responders.

To learn more please visit: https://www.nemindfulnessandperformance.org/home

Sean Kilbreth joins us on the podcast and shares about his experiences in law enforcement, his path to wellness and continued service.

Sean has been a police officer for 26 years, he joins Linda and Jay to discuss his career - including his experience in an officer involved shooting. Sean shares how the job impacted his mental health, his family relationships, how stigma played a role in his life, how mindfulness and other recovery methods helped restore him to a state of well-being, and how he uses what he learned along the way to help others.

Kammie Juzwin, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and holds professional certification as a Police Psychologist. She is an embedded Psychologist Consultant for Bartlett Illinois Police Department, where her primary role is officer wellness and support. She provides wellness and officer-involved critical incident consultation to individual officers or to departments, participates actively as a volunteer on several crisis intervention and disaster response teams, and has published and presented on topics including first responder selection, critical incident response, understanding mental health issues, disaster mental health and line of duty death.

In this episode Dr Juzwin shares how she was drawn to work with the first responder culture, critical incident response, organizational wellness, officer buy in, and how long it took for her to gain the trust of officers within her organization, the importance of officers being able to reach out for help without incurring negative consequences, and how to structure departmental policy that ensures that.

Brian shares with us how and why he chose to serve in the Marine Corps, his transition into a career in law enforcement following his military service, the many roles he held as a cop, and his pride in service.

Brian talks openly about the challenges he faced, the struggles he endured, how he had been coping, and how a new friendship that blossomed into a mentorship gave way to a new pathway of healing, of coming to understand his difficulties, what had caused them, and eventually giving back to the culture of service from which he came by helping those who still suffer from stress induced or psychological injuries.

Brian currently works as the Coordinator of Outreach & Peer Services for Healing Heroes, a mental health and substance use outpatient program exclusively for First Responders.

David Berez is a retired Police Officer and Drug Recognition Expert, having served more than 20 years with the East Windsor Police Department and a total of 33 years in Emergency Services, including EMS and OEM. Following his retirement, Mr. Berez is now the President and Founder of Six4 Consultants, a Public Safety Consulting Firm. Mr. Berez is also the author of A Resilient Life: A Cops Journey in Pursuit of Purpose, co-author of Wounds to Wisdom, featured columnist, guest speaker and panelist on a variety of Public Safety discussions. In September of 2020, Mr. Berez was trained as a Resiliency Program Officer and Master Resiliency Trainer. He is a facilitator for Resilient Minds on the Front Lines, The Power of our Story, and is working to grow Resiliency for Law Enforcement Retirees in NJ with the State's Resilience Program.

In this episode David shares how his experiences in law enforcement led him down a path of self discovery, and from there, into continued service to others. He speaks candidly about responding to the terror attacks of 9/11, the lack of resources available to first responders to help them understand the magnitude of what they had just been through, how they may be impacted by those events, or what to do about it if they had. He talks about the progress he has seen in the development and availability of peer & mental health resources available for first responders from that time to now, how he has contributed to those resources, and the benefits and utility of story telling & positive psychology when introduced and embraced by first response cultures.

Chief Deboard joins us on the podcast and discusses her 38 year career in law enforcement, from how it started, early experiences on the job, proving herself, climbing the ranks, the associated pride, commitment, as well as all the pressure and stress that went along with it. Chief Deboard shares about some of the strategies she began using to manage mounting stress, she talks about her experience going through Boulder Crest's Warrior PATHH program, how she developed an unwavering commitment to officer wellness, and how she began implemented policy in support of that commitment.

Danielle and Karla join us on the podcast and discuss their family connection to First Response, their lived experiences as first responder family members, and why the work they do serving first responders at Boston Firefighters Credit Union is more than just a job.

They also share with us the many ways they can assist first responders towards achieving their financial goals, plan for long term stability, and discuss their Guardian loan program which can be obtained to support first responder families while they attend to mental or behavioral health challenges.

Lieutenant Jeff Wall shares with us about his long career in the Fire Service & EMS world. We discuss the many roles he's held over the years, what he's learned about mental health in first response, the importance of self-care, taking care of each other, & how it all began with a call to serve.