Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol, and with me is campus student content contributor Kaleigh Mazy.

Hey, Kaleigh.

Hey, Jay.

All right, so today we're talking about post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

I know, I think a little bit about it.

Are you familiar at all?

Not really.

No.

Okay, well, then at the end of this half hour, we're going to know a whole lot more.

So a little research.

The National Center for PTSD estimates about 70% of American adults will experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, but only 20% of us actually develop PTSD.

Now, talking about first responders, firefighters, law enforcement officials, paramedics, rescuers, and so on.

According to the institutes for health, more than 80% of these responders experienced traumatic events on the job, for obvious reasons.

Roughly 1 in 3 of them then develop PTSD.

And so in hard numbers, according to the institutes for Health, they estimate 400,001st responders in America have had at least some symptoms of PTSD.

So what can be done to help the responders who encounter things like this such difficult and tragic circumstances?

We hope to find out a little bit about that today.

Our guest is a is leading an effort to do exactly that.

Joining us is Alisa McDonald, program director for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Services Public Safety wellness program.

Thanks for being here, Alisa.

Yeah.

Glad to be here.

Thank you.

You bet.

All right, Alisa, tell us why you and TEEX felt like a program like this for such a specific set of professionals was needed.

Yeah.

So, so I actually, started with TEEX in 2022.

And I came from Texas Department of Public Safety, a victim and employee support services.

So I had some experience already in, in, in the, and also, I'm a licensed professional counselor, but I already had some experience working with first responders.

And so when I started with TEEX, this was a brand new program.

I was the lone employee of the Public Safety Wellness program.

And one of the first things David Courtney, our CEO, agency director, one of the first things he asked me was, how are we going to end first responder suicide?

I was like, wow, what a question to ask.

And our first time meeting.

And so, I kind of thought through that a little bit.

And there was a couple things that I came up with.

Stigmatization of mental health issues amongst the first responder community.

Education.

Sometimes I think that's empowering for people just to kind of understand that, and it normalizes things for people.

Strengthening peer support teams.

Also making sure that there were no barriers for our first responders seeking mental health.

I don't think that people understand that there are some barriers to for them being able to do that.

But working amongst the first responder population, I realized that it was far more prevalent than what most of us understand.

So, so I think that, David Courtney is very passionate about this.

I mean, he's worked in as a fire chief for many, many years, and he was able to see this in his line of work and felt like it was also really important for us to continue this effort at takes.

That's that's a pretty heavy assignment to put on you.

Walking into TEEX.

Right?

Yeah, for sure, but I was ready for it.

I was ready for the challenge.

Well that's great.

So I know, or I believe I know that that you have developed a team that can actually, for lack of a better word, deploy, can respond to, a scene or an incident where first responders are really doing some pretty heavy work.

And at the time we're recording this, it's been about a year since those devastating floods in the Kerrville area.

And I think that was your first deployment, per se, of of the Texas Public Safety Wellness Team, right?

Yes.

What kinds of things did your team encounter with these responders?

So, so when you deploy to either a natural disaster, a mass casualty incident, as, as a peer support team, you know?

Well, let's back up and kind of define what appear is right.

So so a peer would be someone who has lived experience.

So we can you can have one law enforcement officer or first responder kind of be a peer support to another first responder.

Now those peer supporters have done their own work and work in quotes.

Right?

They've done their own work.

They've been specially trained to be able to provide that support.

And so we're not just putting people with shared experiences with people with shared experiences.

These people actually have training to be able to provide that.

So we had a handful of people that we, designated as appropriate to be able to go out and interact.

And when you do that, there's there's a couple things that you have to remember is especially in Kerrville, when it was still an active scene and when I say scene, it's still an active event to this day.

Unlike some of our other mass casualty incidents.

So you also have to remember they have a job to do and they have to stay mission ready.

And so the peers need to be aware of that.

And making sure that they are still equipped to be able to do their job.

But some of the things that we saw were, burnout, exhaustion.

A lot of them didn't realize that they were just dehydrated.

I mean, so, so up here can do anything from, really kind of assessing and processing through a crisis or providing a bottle of water.

So there's a large, kind of spectrum of what kind of support you would be able to provide.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my, my frame of reference, because I spent a couple of years with techs.

My frame of reference is Texas A&M Task Force one.

And I remember, you know, learning that these were specialists in a variety of different, areas of expertise.

So it might be, firefighters, swift boat operators, medical personnel, engineers, and they're all brought in, you know, to be part of this team that then deployed to to a certain scene.

And together they could do the work that was required.

Is that the wrong way for me to think about the team that you have, or are there different areas of expertise that you bring together, or is everybody kind of equipped in the same way?

So, I'd like to take this time to kind of mention, just kind of backing up.

And I've got a process to answering your question.

Okay.

But in 2023, we were awarded a federal appropriation, for to build our program.

That was that was, spearheaded by, Congressman Troy Nehls.

So we were really appreciative to appreciative to be able to get that.

What we first did is we created our support that saves, peer support class.

And it's a three day class, and we do a lot about a lot of, information about the, neurobiology of trauma and the nervous system and self care and all of these things.

And originally we thought we would do one class for fire, one class for law enforcement and kind of silo our first responder disciplines and our first, pilot, we put everybody together.

And then organically was just the best process we could have asked for, because you had, people from all, different, first responder disciplines coming together and learning that they all share the same experiences and then they could all support each other.

And so we've continued to do that, since 2023.

And it's really been beautiful to see all the first responder disciplines come together and support each other, as opposed to then siloing themselves and only thinking, for a police officer can only help a police officer.

So now they're kind of interacting and sharing that support, right?

So so I would say the same along along answer to your question about the task force is they all have, even though they're doing different jobs, they all process what they see and the trauma the same.

So they can offer support and understanding that way as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

What are some signs that you or your team look for that may indicate that a responder may need help before they ask for help?

Well, I think the important part is asking for help.

And that's part of our stigmatization and education program, is sometimes they don't know.

They just don't know.

I like to tell the story about, when I first started with takes, I was interacting with a retired firefighter, and, I was telling him what I did for a living, and he said, you know, I think I'm just more resilient than most.

I've never had any of those issues.

Later in our conversation, he says, my fourth wife dot dot dot.

Right.

And so, so I think that sometimes there's not always the understanding of the A plus b equals C, right is B is left out.

And I think that's where we come in and provide them with that.

So and our support that saves class.

That's some of the evaluations have said things like well I wish I had known this 30 years ago or I thought I wanted to be up here, but I realize I have my own work to do.

So sometimes I think, the education piece is one of the bigger, parts of then understanding what's going on with them and maybe some of the effects of the job that they didn't realize.

And then with the support that saved class, we already kind of talked about them realizing that they have the same shared experience as other disciplines.

But what's another takeaway from this course that changes someone's approach to either other first responders or their own well-being?

So I think it's that that trauma informed perspective, which is, now I understand that my peer, the person I'm sitting next to, they may be responding to certain situations because they've experienced trauma.

I understand that now.

I understand that they, they look at the world a little bit differently.

And you were asking about some signs and symptoms.

So one of them is hyper vigilance.

So, I don't know if you've been out to a restaurant with a police officer, but don't dare sit sitting in the spot that faces the door.

Right.

So so that's a level of hyper vigilance.

I don't think people kind of understand that a lot of our first first responders experience.

But, I think once they attend our Support Estates class, some of this stuff starts to make sense for themselves, but also their brothers and sisters in uniform.

So they start to understand their their coworkers and their peers, but better as well.

You had mentioned early on in our conversation that some barriers exist in this whole scenario.

Would you talk more about that?

Sure.

So, so when it comes to a mental health care, a lot of counselors are not or not taking insurance.

So, so a counseling session can be anywhere from 100 to $150 per session.

So cost that's a that's a barrier.

And we did kind of an informal survey of first responders.

And that's where we get this information.

Cost is a barrier.

Scheduling due to shifts.

So the normal 8 to 5 Monday through Friday doesn't work for a lot of our first responders.

Stigmas.

The stigma related around seeking mental health, health care and then lack of finding what we call culturally competent counselors to understand first responder issues.

So not all counselors are equipped to, counsel.

That population is kind of a niche for for, the counseling profession.

And our first responders feel that, too.

So I've talked to several that have said, yeah, I saw a counselor and they cried and, and our first session and like, well, it's okay for a counselor to cry, but, you know, it may not be your stories of, 3 to 5 traumas per day may be a lot for for this particular counselor.

So, but yeah, that those are some of the barriers that we identified and would not have even considered cultural differences being a factor in the work that you're doing.

Do you have any examples that come to mind where, you know, this ended up being very different than, than maybe the, the bulk of the the work that you do?

So I think that, when it comes to so I'll, I'll just this is just one minor thing, but I'll say, my first responders, they have a lot of acronyms, right.

And when they're using all of these acronyms and I have to, as a counselor, say, wait, let's not continue this therapy session.

And tell me what all of those things mean.

Yeah, right.

I mean, that's just a minor part of understanding what we do, but understanding that, when, say a police officer is on the side of the road writing a ticket, right.

The general population just assumes they're just on the side of the road writing a ticket.

But what we also don't understand is there's cars flying by.

There's other things they have to attend to.

There's things going on inside the car.

The officer's concerned for their own safety.

There's a lot of things that, as the general public, just doesn't understand when it comes to the first responder profession.

Yeah.

So having a counselor that's really invested a whole lot of time making sure that they understand and that they're educated on that is really important.

Let me take a minute just to reintroduce you to our viewers and our listeners.

If you're just tuning in, I'm Jay Socol, along with KAMU student content contributor Kaleigh Mazy.

Our guest today is Alisa McDonald, who oversees Texas Public Safety Wellness program.

And we are talking about first responder mental health.

All right.

When someone reaches out to you or your response team after, during or after a crisis, what happens next?

Is it just an immediate support or does it involve long term care for recovery?

Well, it depends.

And that's part of, the training for our peers is they have to be aware of when someone they're supporting has exceeded their ability to support them.

So that's one of the big training pieces is how to had it you as a peer?

No, it's time for a referral or a time for the next level of care.

And so we make sure that we really emphasize that in our training.

And then it's really imperative that each peer team throughout the state of Texas, whether it's us or anybody else, that they do have a clinician, a mental health person that they can consult with.

I think that that's it's it's best practice to have somebody on staff or around that you can call to kind of talk through some of those things.

A lot of times I'll have a peer call and just say, hey, Alisa, I was talking to this person today.

What do you think about that?

And I might say, well, go back to them and try this or try that, or maybe I need to talk to them.

So, so and then from there, we decide what the best course of action is for that individual.

So like like we've talked about TEEX's offers, both counseling services and peer support.

So how do those two systems actually work together?

Well, we have a website and so on that website, there is a we've got we have an education button to, to find the support that saves class.

And then we have the counseling and then we have our other services.

So our other services would be external peer support.

We do a need survey and wellness programing for first responder agencies.

And then we have a speakers request there.

And then on our counseling, all they have to do is click Request counseling.

And there's a little triage form.

It's not very hard.

We asked their name.

We want to know what first responder, discipline they come from.

And then all of those barriers that we listed, we have all of those on that request form.

And all they have to do is check one of those, and then they, they, they, qualify for our no cost counseling.

Okay.

And, just to help me better understand, how is peer support different than a first responder just going to a coworker and talking to them?

Well, again, I sometimes what happens if you just go to a coworker or friend?

Sometimes that commiseration happens and then you're just kind of stuck in that endless cycle of misery and you do that.

And so, the peer supporters, again, they've been specially trained to be able to provide that support.

And so, we actually our peers, we actually have continuing education throughout the year.

These are our internal peer supports.

And one of our training is commiseration versus support.

So we want to make sure that they understand that we're they're not increasing or encouraging the problem, but they're really they're validating, but they're also working towards a solution.

Where can you give an example of what's commiseration and what is support?

Absolutely.

So, so commiseration would be, my this job is just terrible.

I hate this job.

Oh, you're right, it is terrible.

We.

These shifts are awful.

Yeah.

You're right.

These shifts are awful.

Right.

That would be commiseration.

Support would be.

You know, I'm sure that the department, has a on 12 hour shifts for a reason.

You know, I'm sure they've thought this through.

You know, it's we kind of have to work through it together.

We can support each other.

So.

So those are the difference between the two.

Interesting.

So I think most of us, or at least a lot of us, have a law enforcement professional, a firefighter, EMT, a dispatcher, or someone like that in our lives, whether our family or friends somewhere in our circles.

But what are some signs that may indicate that they are struggling?

What do we need to look for?

And then what do we do about that?

Yeah.

So I would say I don't expect for the signs and symptoms to be like bolts of lightning.

It's just not going to be that way.

It could be very subtle and very discreet, and it could be something that they have been using as a defense mechanism for a very long time.

So a lot of times, your loved ones, don't even realize that it's, it's, it's happening.

But I would say top, the top thing that people struggle with the most is sleep.

My first responders are not sleeping.

None of them are sleeping.

So sleep is an issue.

When they start to not enjoy the things that they used to enjoy, when they start to isolate and disengage from their family and friends.

So those are, those are all some of the big ones, obviously nightmares.

Kind of.

I'm going to use the word dissociation.

But it's not that.

It's not like an identity, disorder or anything like that, but when they kind of just zone out and don't engage with their loved ones, when you're at a party and they've disappeared and they're just out by themselves somewhere.

So there's a lot there's there's a few different things.

And I'll also say it will just it depends too, on the individual.

There are some factors that play into it.

Their support system, genetics play a role sometimes in if we're talking about post-traumatic stress symptoms, their resilience before they became a first responder.

So there's a lot of other things that kind of play into whether how they're going to respond.

But if we if we sort of detect something that we feel like maybe signs of a problem, what are we supposed to do?

Do we have the ability to reach out to you and your team for possible help?

So.

So, yes.

I mean, if you if you as a friend, I wanted to reach out to me and say, hey, so I have a friend that I feel like is experiencing this, I might walk you through some things that you could say or do, but I think the first responder clients that I have in my counseling room appreciate that.

I'm direct, and transparent.

And so I will say what I'm thinking and, and follow up with that.

So I think being direct with your friends, it is just saying, hey man, I noticed that, you know, you're you're just kind of disconnected from your family.

Is there something going on?

Can I help?

I actually know somebody that you could probably reach out to.

So I think just being direct and honest, with people about what you're seeing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

You've already got a a good foundation for the program that you're building.

What do you hope it looks like in maybe five years?

Ten years?

What does it need to be?

So obviously, I, we are counseling program is twofold.

So number one we wanted to provide take down that barrier.

Right.

The other thing is that we want it to be a it's a training facility for developing counselors on how to treat first responders.

So we do have an internship program.

I would love to expand that so that we reach more first responders.

But long term, I would love to see us be able to incorporate families because they struggle as well.

And retirees, retirees also have a very high suicide rate.

So we hope to to be able to incorporate that.

We call it public safety wellness and not public safety, mental health because there are other facets of wellness that we'd like to include financial wellness, physical fitness, all of those things.

Yeah.

So if we're talking about a 5 or 10 year, ten year, ten year goals that those would be our long term goals.

Where does the extension aspect, really come in?

I mean, TEEX is pretty famous for extending their training and their programs into other parts of the state, the country, the world.

Yeah.

Where does the extension really come in with what you're building?

So, we so we have we have our extension managers who go out in into different regions of the state, but we are delivering our support that shaves class twice a month throughout the state of Texas.

So, we were in temple last week.

We're in Houston next week.

We'll be in El Paso, San Antonio, we're all over.

But we've also expanded our support that saves training into the FEMA catalog.

So we're also delivering that on a national a national basis as well.

So we were in, Virginia a few weeks ago, and we'll be in New York and Oregon.

So we're all over.

So we've really expanded that, and it's really taken off.

And people are very appreciative that we have that training.

Yeah, yeah.

I did want to go back when you talking about wellness versus mental health and these first responders are working anywhere between like 12 and 48 hour long shifts.

So where does self-care fall into that and how do you like actually take care of yourself?

You know, that's that's a funny question.

I would say, you have to carve out some time.

You have to carve out some time in your day in, in a lot of, a lot of the first responders that I see is physical fitness is one of their self-care.

But, I would say, you know, I told somebody the other day, I have a homework assignment for you choose a kid.

She's one of your children.

And find ask them one new thing about themself.

So about the children.

And so giving them those small little bits of, of, interaction with their family can also be kind of opening the door self-care, and including their family with it.

So, but, you know, it's different for everybody what they find for self-care.

I, I go to the gym every single day for 30 minutes, that's all.

I just carve out 30 minutes of my day for exercise.

But I would say find something, even if it's 15 minutes, you know.

Yeah.

So as we start to wind down our time together, what are some things that maybe Kaleigh and I didn't ask you about but you think are really important to, to share with our audience?

You know, I just think being aware and the education, so that people understand more clearly what our first responders are struggling with on a daily basis.

I don't think that it's it's, in the general public's wheelhouse to think through when they sit down at night to interact with their family.

Oh, well, that first responder on the side of the road, man, that was just one call.

Maybe.

I wonder what else they've experienced throughout the day.

So just kind of, understanding that they, they struggle and they struggle to and, you know, just being educated about it.

I think this kind of reminds me, I'll just say this really quick.

I, started my counseling career at Scotty's house.

So I would do educational programs for, child exploitation, sexual physical abuse, and that sort of thing.

And I would have people say, well, it seems like, this is more prevalent today than it was back in the 70s.

And my comment to them would always be, no, it's not.

We just we're just more educated.

And I would say the same for first responder mental health.

It's always been around, but we're just more educated and aware about it now.

Yeah.

If we happen to have any elected officials, you know, county judges, county commissioners, mayors, council members and so forth, police chiefs, fire chiefs who, are hearing what you're talking about and thinking we might we really might need to look into this.

What would you recommend to these elected officials?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, that's the thing.

I've collected data, in the four years that I've been at, at, TEEX And so I would welcome them to come and look at the data that I've collected on, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Just the evaluations that we've had, the need surveys that we've conducted.

So kind of looking at that data, obviously, funding is always an issue for us.

I mean, that's how that's the only way we can expand.

And just kind of looking at what we're doing.

But also I would love to share with them their success that we've had too, so we can identify a problem.

But we also have the metrics to show that what we're doing is working right.

And I would say that it is for sure, okay.

Having a web address where people can go to find out more.

So you can just go to our TEEX website and I think it's in, special initiatives and, or you can just Google TEEX Public Safety Wellness, okay.

And it'll pop up.

Yeah, that sounds perfect.

Alisa thank you so much for joining us.

This was a extremely enlightening conversation.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me I appreciate it.

So okay, Brazos Matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio 90.9 Kamu FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

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I am Jay Socol.

Thank you so much for watching and listening.

Hope you have a great day.