February 11, 2026 • 44 mins
Hosts:
Dr. Ashlee Gethner, LCSW – Child of a Police Officer
Jennifer Woosley Saylor, LPCC S – Child of a Police Officer
Guest:
Chief Deputy Justin Miller, Kenosha Sheriff’s Office
Episode Summary
In this heartfelt episode, Chief Deputy Justin Miller returns to talk with Ashlee and Jennifer about leadership, mental health, and breaking stigma in first responder communities. The conversation dives deeply into Justin's personal journey using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, how sharing vulnerability can transform departmental culture, and exciting news about their upcoming presentation at the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Conference (ILEETA).
Key Topics & HighlightsLeadership & Vulnerability: Chief Deputy Miller emphasizes leading by example, sharing his own mental health journey, and the importance of vulnerability in building trust within his department.
EMDR Therapy: Ashlee and Jennifer discuss the impact of EMDR and how it’s not just for job-related trauma, but often for deeply personal experiences. Chief Deputy Miller shares his powerful story processing grief and trauma through EMDR, describing the emotional catharsis and lasting changes.
Breaking the Stigma: The group addresses common fears around mental health programs for first responders -especially the worries about confidentiality, losing a job, or being seen as weak. Chief Deputy Miller advocates open dialogue, personal storytelling, and changing the culture to make wellness "the norm."
Department Initiatives: Launching "neck up checkups"- annual mental health check-ins. High participation reflects growing trust and normalization of mental wellness.
Upcoming Conference: Chief Deputy Miller and Ashlee (Dr. G) will co-present at ILEETA, sharing their department’s model for clinical and administrative partnership in crisis response.
Bonus: "When The Call Hits Home" will be podcasting live throughout the week at the conference, expanding their reach to thousands of international law enforcement professionals.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I knew that I needed to get things out right.
I knew I couldn't just forever hold everything inside and be
well and preach Wellness to my people and my staff and expect
them just to do what I wasn't doing.
I'm a walk the walk, talk to talk kind of guy, right?
I was testing her out. Yes, he was.
I mean, I was, but it was like our first session was really
(00:24):
good and I was just like, OK, well this is way better than I
anticipated. Welcome back to the podcast.
I'm Jennifer. And I'm Ashley.
I think this might be. Is this our first repeat?
Yeah, besides your dad, right? Yeah, she never counts for
anything. So this is like a pretty big
deal that we definitely wanted you back on.
(00:44):
So introduce who we got here with us.
I will introduce him. So I we have my chief deputy
back and we are excited. So if you guys remember a few,
well, it's been a while now. Yeah, episodes ago, he was on
kind of talking about admin and what that looks like in terms of
leadership and mental health andall the things that we're trying
to implement here together. But also one of the episodes
(01:05):
that Jennifer and I did, we stressed EMDR heavily.
And something that Chief is incredible about is sharing his
experience with EMDR. So we thought it would be cool
to have him back on because not only is he going to help us
navigate a little bit of the personal side of EMDR, but we
also have some exciting news to share.
Thank you for. Having me, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I don't know if I want to start the whole EMDR
(01:27):
conversation. You could, yeah.
At least leave me to the water. Oh, don't worry, We'll we'll
lead you right there and you're gonna, you're gonna drink up.
Well, I'm excited that you're back.
We had a lot of great feedback about your last episode and you
know, I think it takes a lot to be in leadership and say, hey,
there's bridges that we really want to bridge together.
(01:48):
Like we're not the enemy. We're trying to figure this out
and the best way possible. I definitely appreciated like
your fever for reading and the research that you do on
leadership and trying to find that information.
So I think that that's powerful.And I think you guys are feeling
that up there, right? Like obviously and anything
(02:08):
that's hard, there's always growing pains, but it sounds
like your guys work because really paying off some.
Yeah, I just wish the reading was more contagious.
I like to ask them to read a lotof books, so they get a little
little angry with me when I'm pushing books on them all the
time. So yeah, they do some.
Yeah. Do they like audio books?
I love an audio book. Yeah, and there's times where
(02:30):
the author is not so. Say less, Say less.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A voice of a voice of somebody
reading a book can be. Oh my, it could be hard
sometimes. But yeah, no, I think our
program is actually, we can give, I don't, we've been really
working hard. So we have a lot of things that
have started for us here and she's been amazing helping us
(02:52):
push that along. And I, I think I stress a lot
too that it's different for our department because he is so
hands on, but in the most like, beautiful way.
Yeah. Like this is his baby.
Like he truly wanted a mental health program for his people,
which is inspiring and really encouragement.
So him and I work very closely together to make sure these
things happen. Just kind of following his lead
and making sure we get it done. But we just implanted neck up
(03:15):
check UPS. Yeah, that was just started this
year and I think last report I got is they're filling up fast.
We the first report I got was like the 7th day of January and
all of February was filled. Oh my goodness, that's
incredible. Yeah.
Very. Yeah, I'm a little bit bad for
Doc Chi here, you know, because she has a lot of appointments
(03:36):
now. But that's the whole point of
it, right? I think she enjoys being busy.
I won't speak for you, Ashley. Sorry.
I. Do I most definitely do.
Well, that's incredible. I mean, you said, you know, this
year and I'm like, gosh, we are this year is not very old.
So I mean, that's incredible that all those things are
happening. And I do want to just echo what
(03:58):
Ashley said in terms of like, I can tell that you really care
about your department and it is your baby in a way that's
really, it's a beautiful thing for sure.
Yeah. So let's lead into to something
a few months ago now, I had gotten a text from him and it
said, Hey, like, are you free inlike 10 minutes?
Because you know, my life, it just runs on chief time.
(04:18):
So I was like, I guess, and I went and we spoke to what was it
the the accident. Meeting I was teaching officer
Wellness too, for the state of Wisconsin at the Gateway
Technical College Academy and I was teaching suicide prevention.
So I thought it was a great idea.
And timing is that's that's irrelevant.
(04:38):
You know, I think I gave her more in 10 minutes.
This is, you know, maybe like anhour and 10 minutes.
But yes, I said, Hey, if you have some time, can you stop
over because I would really loveto introduce her.
I had my own deputy candidates in there, recruits and just to
show other agencies they're recruits.
Like this is real, right? Because I preach it in the
Academy all the time. I talk about how the stigma is
(05:02):
breaking, right? We're doing a really good job of
breaking down those barriers. But it takes everybody to
understand that it's OK to talk,right?
It's OK. And as an administrator, and I
probably spoke about this on thelast one, is we have to break
that stigma and we have to not worry about, well, what is it
going to look like if I do talk to somebody about issues, right?
(05:24):
Am I going to get my job taken away?
Am I going to get put on administrative duty?
And like, you know, the old, youknow, rubber gun squad or, you
know, destiny, we're trying to avoid all those stigmas.
And I just thought, well, it's one thing coming from me, right?
I'm a talking head up there. I said bring in a professional
who can, you know, really give you guys the clinician side of
(05:47):
things and then just show the partnership that we have.
Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. And I think what was cool for
me, even though I was maybe stressed about it, was that I
got to listen to see him interact with them, right?
But what I love, because it's something that I push a lot, is
that he was just a human to them.
It's easy to be admin, I think, across the board, but that's not
(06:08):
what he did. And so something that I realized
really quickly was that he was very open with them about his
own personal life, right? And I think that's the way we
connect with people. And if we're not open and
vulnerable, then we're not proving our point.
And so he had shared with his class about his own experience
of doing EMDR. And I thought that was super
(06:28):
powerful. And then I was like, oof.
I'm going to put him on the spoton his podcast because I think
what's really important to recognize, and I don't want to
steal your Thunder with your story of EMDR, but EMDR isn't
always about the things on the job, right?
Like Jennifer, you and I talk about this, yes, there's
critical incidents from the job that we do work on, but like
mostly in a lot of the times it's our personal lives that
(06:51):
come on to this career before we're, you know, even doing it.
So I want to know Chief, if you are open to giving us, you have
to give us great detail, but if you're willing to kind of maybe
explain at first if you were interested in EMDR or kind of
what was that push for you to actually do it?
I had known nothing about EMDR before I started counseling,
(07:11):
right? I had no idea.
I heard it was a TikTok trend, You know, seriously, I was like,
not on TikTok, but I think my daughter may have said, hey,
have you heard this? And then I'm like, no.
And I didn't pay any attention to it.
So going through therapy and youknow, my laundry list of things
that I'm very open, like Ashley said, like I try to make sure
that my students, even my employees, know that I'm a
(07:34):
human, right? We're all human beings first.
Like, I don't like even using mytitle.
I don't need my employees calling me in just a general
setting. They don't need to use chief
deputy, right? They can call me by my first
name, whatever. If we're in obvious in a board
setting or a like where there's other professionals that are
from the county or the other agencies, then sure, it's
(07:55):
appropriate, right? But in terms of my students,
like the state gives us materialand that material is, I mean,
they've been in lecture after lecture after lecture and that
first, you know, couple at firstphase one is all lecture, right?
And then they start to get out and do things, and then they
come back into the classroom in Phase 3, and that's the last of
(08:16):
their Academy before they graduate.
And this is one of the topics isOfficer Wellness 2, suicide
prevention. So in the past when I've taught
this before EMDR, I'll kind of just give the history, right?
I have plenty of stories. I was in the Navy, right?
I was a psych tech. But I think that you made a good
point about it's not just everything that builds up in
(08:39):
this job. It's other things in your life
too that build up. And when I talk about Wellness,
I talk about Wellness as a, it'snot just one little thing inside
of the bucket, right? It's if you're not well
financially, that's bad. If you're not well spiritually,
if you're not well, you know, everything builds up and you and
if you can't just concentrate onjust mental health, just
(09:01):
finance, just physical Wellness,just diet, right?
Everything has to be in harmony.So when I talk to them, I like
to give them personal experiences.
And some of the feedback we get from the recruits is like some
of the instructors just come in and tell war stories right about
their time on the show. Yep.
You know when I pulled the guy over when I did this right?
(09:22):
But I don't. And you know, I could just be
looking, I get myself the rules,color glasses.
But I think when you make yourself a real human being and
you show them that you also haveissues, even in whatever
position you have, it kind of brings the points home better,
right than just like them watching a video of XPD, some
(09:43):
officer just up there on the screen talking about their
issues and what how it affected them.
I'm real to them because I'm their instructor.
They have seen me now for at least nine weeks and they've
seen all kinds of different sides of me.
Well, now I'm about to get real,you know, and tell them all
about the mental struggles that I've had in this profession.
And they don't all just come from this profession.
(10:04):
So in the past classes, my mom passed away in 2009.
And in the past classes I've hadsuicides in my life of loved
ones. Ex fiance killed herself, like a
lot of different levels of trauma, right, right.
My mom had cancer and she foughtit.
She was a fighter. She fought it and beat cancer
(10:26):
twice in this on the third time,she wasn't willing to die,
right? Yeah.
She didn't have anything lined up for death.
Nothing. She just she refused.
So when my mom passed away, I knew that at some point, right?
But she, I thought 1 so many times that I didn't ever think
it would really happen. And she was 53 when she passed
away. So young.
(10:47):
I'm super young, right? So I struggled with a lot of
things I had, we had some marital issues at that time
because I just gave up on God, you know, and I don't wanna
speak too much religion, but I gave up on God because I didn't
understand, right? I was like, OK, my mom was, she
had her demons, right? But she was angelic compared to
(11:07):
my dad, right? And if my dad ever watches this,
you know what you did, you'll befine.
I was questioning faith and like, why?
Why my mom? Why so young?
My son had just been born. He was three months old.
My daughter was 3. And like, my mom was like her,
her love language was gift giving, right?
(11:27):
What was her, her thing? So my little, my little girl, I
had everything at that time frommy mom and my mom in Mexico at
the time. So it wasn't, we didn't have
like a super like we didn't get to see each other as much as we
wanted to. But she called me every day, you
know? So when she was actually back
home for a family reunion, when she really started taking a
(11:48):
downfall and she was going through a specialized treatment
out in New Mexico where they were doing a trial like laser,
like zapping the boomers off with a laser.
They thought it was going well, but they told her not to travel
strong headed. She had to come home because
there's a family reunion and she.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Badly.
So when she was home, she had a couple episodes where I had to
(12:09):
bring her to the ER. The final episode at the ER,
they told me she cannot travel back.
She needs to stay. Like, she just, she can't
travel. OK.
I mean, she was basically we hadto like, push her around in a
wheelchair. So that day that she passed
away, she was sitting in my recliner in my home, and she was
holding my son, right? They were just sleeping together
(12:31):
in a recliner and she was incontinent, right?
And yeah, so. And I'm like, like, is Owen's
diaper leaky? Owen's.
Gonna be so mad. So yeah, but it wasn't, it was
my mom, right? And and their flight was
literally like 3 hours later. Like they had to leave my house
in three hours and my aunt and my grandma were with and my aunt
(12:53):
was very adamant that she goes home.
She has to go home. She has treatment.
I'm like the doctor said she can't go home and she forced
her. My mom couldn't even ambulate.
She's yelling at my mom to get out of the house.
You need to go. We have to catch her flight and
I'm fighting with them just to Isaid I will take care of her,
just leave her here. And my grandma didn't want to
leave. So it was just a hot.
(13:14):
Mess. Oh, how the dynamics there I
can't imagine. Yeah, they they end up leaving.
She passed away on the flight and they had to make an
emergency landing in Denver to, to wheel her off.
You know, and the real point of that is I couldn't tell that
story in the Academy because I, I couldn't even talk about my
mom, right? You know, the things I cried
(13:35):
about all the time, like it was,it's not fair like that.
My kids will never know what their grandma looks like as an
old woman, right? Like I always wonder like, what
would my mom look like? And knowing my mom, she would
try to stay blonde and and you know, tan and everything else.
So I couldn't tell those stories, right?
I would just I would tell all the other stories, but I never
(13:58):
would. I couldn't touch on that because
and I cried in front of the recruits before, but if I tried
to tell that story, I couldn't even get past that.
I just would like to know what my mom would look like as an old
lady and yeah, just be like I couldn't go forward.
One of many things that led me to counseling with Doc Chi and
she made me make my list of all my traumas in life.
(14:21):
And so I brought the 27 pages inand.
So he's not kidding. Actually.
I don't know how many pages though.
But yeah, I wrote, I wrote down everything from basically my
childhood to where we were currently sitting.
There was a lot, right? And she picked up on because
she's she's smart and she's like, all right, we need to do
(14:43):
this EMDR on your mom. And I'm like, she's like, you
will. And I'm like, I'll try anything,
whatever, let's go. I had no idea what I was getting
into or what I was going to do, right?
And she hands me these two little Nintendo joystick and I'm
like, OK, so. And she explained everything
well and she's like, let me knowif you need a break.
And she walked me through it theprocess, right?
And they're vibrating. And what I understand about it
(15:05):
now is right. It replicates REM sleep.
And I don't you guys connect. It's good.
No, it's nice to hear it from you.
You know what? I mean, it replicates
absolutely, right. You lead me to things to think
about and what to, you know, bring you back to certain times
and things like that. And I mean, I cried a lot, a
lot. It was very difficult.
It still is right inside, but like, to be able to talk about
(15:28):
it without bawling, you know, you know, is pretty cool, I
guess, for lack of better term. My son's 16 now.
And wow, it's only been, it's been what, 6-7, eight months
since we did EMDR. Yeah.
So to be able to sit and have these conversations that I'm
able to have, I mean, I've had Doctor G will tell you, I have
these conversations with anyone that will listen to me, you
(15:50):
know, because I think it's so important for people to
understand how powerful that was.
We were in there for two hours, easily two hours.
And it felt like 20 minutes in terms of like time frame.
But I walked out of there and I mean, I was physically, mentally
drained. I felt like I had just ran a
marathon. I slept really good that night
(16:11):
because I was just like and I don't sleep.
So I was just about to say, waita minute.
It was very, it felt like there was a huge like boulder lifted
off my shoulder to go through that and talk about it.
And when I tell other people that are interested in my the
story, she has certain patients that will come to me because
they know I'm an open book and they'll ask me like, hey, what
happened? If you did this, what should I
(16:32):
do it? And I always tried to tell them
I'm like, look, we did it for another what I thought was a
really traumatic event and it didn't replicate right.
Just because I think somethings traumatic, it doesn't
necessarily mean it is in that world.
And this is just the layperson. I'm.
Looking at it's that notion of right, we had to do the float
(16:52):
back and get him to the point ofwhere this started, right.
And so obviously everyone goes through their own process with
EMDR, but it was one of those things where like until we kind
of healed his younger self and some of those things that
happened, then my mom being a big part of that, we weren't
gonna make huge progress on the now.
It's everyone's journey is a little bit different, obviously.
(17:13):
And Jennifer, you can speak to that as well.
Absolutely, I don't have any issues.
OK. I didn't realize this happened
not that long ago. Like, I really appreciate you
coming. Yeah, you would not know it,
right? We're like 2 besties.
You would never. So let me ask, did you have any
apprehension of like or? I need to know every detail of
(17:37):
what EMDR is before me to try or.
I don't know, I think she gave me the Cliff notes version and I
was like, I worked in psych, right?
And it was a long time ago. So things change and we doctor
and I joke all about the old catatonic shuffle and all those
things. And I've seen pretty much
everything in the psych world, you know, just from being my
(17:59):
training. Yeah.
Working in, in this law enforcement is, is mental
health, right? We're part social worker, we're
part law enforcement. And my correctional officers are
even more so, you know, mental health specialists without the
title, right. So I, I wasn't necessarily
afraid of the process itself. I was more afraid rate of like
(18:21):
what happened, basically me being a bubbling little crybaby
in front of, you know, somebody that I know well, not we didn't
really even know each other thatwell.
Then I mean, she had just kind of been introduced to the agency
and I started seeing her becauseone I know I'm broken, right?
I've seen and I've seen other therapists after the riots,
(18:43):
after COVID, right? The county had offered some
sessions and they're OK. I wasn't life changing or
anything like that, but I knew that I needed to get things out,
right? I knew I couldn't just forever
hold everything inside and be well and preach Wellness to my
people and my staff and expect them just to do what I wasn't
(19:05):
doing. I'm a walk the walk, talk to
talk kind of guy, right? I was testing her out.
Yes, she was. I mean, I was, but it was like
our first session was really good and I was just like, OK,
well this is way better than I anticipated.
And then it was only our second session before we went right
into EMDR. Yeah, I was pretty pushy with
(19:27):
him. I was like, we're not gonna
spend. He's clever, he's intelligent,
right? I had to be a little bit more
direct and like, no, we have to.We're gonna do this.
We're doing these things becausehe can talk circles around me
too sometimes. So I definitely was a little bit
more obviously gauge everybody. But I knew he was ready.
Not only that, but he hits it onthe head when he says for me,
I'm sure there was the nervousness of like, what is
(19:48):
this gonna look like? But if I'm going to be telling
my people to do it right, like Ishould do it myself and I,
that's what I love about him. That's not in the, that's not in
the stuff that the state gives us, right?
They don't give me EMDR, they don't give me the moral injury,
right? And so I'm like putting this
stuff, I just add things. I'm not allowed to take anything
(20:08):
out of the curriculum, but I canadd things, right?
So anything that I can give the next generation?
That won't make them look at talking to someone or Wellness
and as a whole in a bad light. I mean, I'm just going to feed,
right? Well, and I want to reflect this
and I think the power and you saying, you know, if I'm going
(20:30):
to ask anybody to do anything, like I have to be willing to do
that myself. I mean, that's a great
leadership characteristic, but also just the power I appreciate
of you being here. And you know, I know you reach
your community so intensely and I just hope this reaches there's
more people. I am always amazed and I can sit
(20:51):
and give the best sales pitch about EMDR and say, like, I have
seen it transform people and people letting go of a horrific
tragedy that was haunting them or again, an experience of when
we were young and didn't realize, man, I've been holding
on to that for a long time and be so again, like a sales pitch
(21:16):
explaining every detail of neuroscience in terms of what's
happening with EMDR. And there can be some real
hesitations. And yet when I've been involved
in programs where other first responders talk about their EMDR
experience, like how they are ready to jump into the deep end
(21:37):
to say, well, if so and so said,they had a good response.
And it's so amazing to me because I'm like, you know, I
mean, I'm a pretty honest persontelling you like this works.
And yet there's still some hesitation about, I don't know,
like what is this? Is it too woo woo?
Is it hypnotizing me like all these things?
(21:59):
And I think sometimes it is about, and I think such a unique
cultural part of first responders is just saying like,
hey, if another first responder,they get it.
Jennifer doesn't get it. She's not a first responder.
But if I hear this first responder who this experience
and gets it, I think that's really powerful and I feel like
(22:20):
I want to ask a question in that.
What do you guys think about that in terms of reaching first
responders? So I think my story has gotten
out there to people because my old chief deputy calls this the
closet of secrets. You know, I do a lot of
counseling in my office, right? And I've had at least 10 people
(22:43):
in this agency come over and askme about EMDR And, and I, I tell
them exactly. I actually probably go into more
detail. You know, I do believe that.
I believe that. I think there's always been this
fear in our profession in first responders professions.
I mean, I think maybe the firefighters are a little better
at it because they're the huggy feely ones, right?
(23:05):
They can, you know, with a boot and fill it up with cash.
You know, I always say like, yeah, that's, I mean, great.
We love our firefighters. We have to, you know, they have
to always take their. I always say they check the
right box, we check the wrong 1.So I mean, but I think they do
better like the debriefing and all those type of things, right?
(23:26):
And there's always been this, and I can only speak for my
agency, obviously, but there's always been this fear of
feelings or talking about thingsthat are outside of the box, if
you will. We said Lieutenant interviews
yesterday and these conversations that come up, not
necessarily, but EMDR about the culture and having to shift the
(23:46):
culture for the new generation. And in the new generation, they
want to talk, right? They want to they want to be
they want to know that you've see them.
And I think this is part of the change, right.
And I can say that as reflectingover my time in leadership is
I've tried to change, right. I have to be malleable to the
changing of the ways. And that's what I try to preach
(24:08):
to my leaders here is like you cannot stay status quo When they
don't want to read my books thatI like, that's fine, but go find
something else then, right, Right.
Yeah, teaching all dog new tricks, but the old dogs need to
want to learn the OR do something to be better.
Otherwise it's not going to work, right.
You know, you can't stay status quo.
So the discussions were had about that and just changing
(24:31):
things. And what was said was our SWAT
members actually understand debriefs the best because they
debrief everything, right? That's your hardest population
to get feelings out of in in ouragency, right?
Because you know, they right there, they need to, that's just
they're kind of driven to that. But then they'll debrief with
(24:55):
each other. But getting them to open up
outside of that little circle istougher.
So how do I, what I said to themis like, OK, well, let's think
about that and how do we make that come out right?
How do we get them to debrief outside of their little click or
circle? And I don't have the answer to
that, but you know, it's just something that I'm thinking
(25:16):
about. And I took over the captain of
detentions in 2016, late 2016. We had a lot of critical
incidents in the jail, which most do, right?
I wasn't doing anything like there was no plan for our staff.
Luckily, we had a chaplain on board at the time who happened
to be trained in critical debriefs.
(25:37):
But I can tell you when I first started doing them, it was like
1-2 people in in there. And of course, I went against
the cardinal rule. I sat in them, which then I
learned because he didn't know, right?
But I learned that I can't be inthere even though I was a part
of the critical incident because, you know, I was there
for them and everything that debrief is different, right?
So, and then I had to train my, my leaders, my supervisor,
(26:00):
right? You can't be in there, right?
We'll do a separate one for you guys or you guys, right?
And once we broke that out, thenpeople started showing up at
debriefs. Well, then that chaplain retired
and then that fell off. So it, it takes the village,
right? This, the entire agency, all my
administration, all my leaders have to be on the same page.
(26:21):
And they get sick of hearing me preach, I guarantee it.
Or talk about these type of things.
You know, all the time. I feel like my 74 year old
father, right? I tell him the same story over
and over, but it's with the hopethat, yeah, they end up, the
light comes on and they're like,Oh my gosh, you know, and even
if I'm gone and that light comeson afterwards, I'm just trying
(26:41):
to plant seeds, right? Because I'm not gonna fix
everything in the next X amount of years that I'm here nine
months to two years and nine months.
So but. Who's counting, huh?
But. Who's counting?
Not me because he can't leave. I was just going to say, I do
think it speaks volumes to like they've never had neck of
checkups, right? So those are the yearly mental
health check insurance and a tonof departments now across the
(27:02):
United States to them, fire police and you know, some it's
mandatory, someone's voluntary, whatever.
But this is our first year running them.
And so I think it speaks volumesto what we're trying to do and
make that change when people areactually signing up.
It is a brand new concept to everybody.
And yet we have a lot of people on board, which is a beautiful
thing. And I think sharing his story,
being open to doing things like this and being really active at
(27:25):
his department with just being ahuman is why that's happening so
much. And there is a fine line with me
being an administrator and it's hard, right?
Cuz we talked about that the first time I was on, right?
We're not the beast, right? I know.
And in some agencies, I can't speak for that, right?
But I hope that my message, whoever listens to this or when
(27:46):
we go to this conference, right,we'll be able to show that this
is a partnership that has to happen all across the world, not
just law enforcement agencies inthe United States, but
everywhere. That partnership has to happen.
And there can't be a US versus them in terms of how my
employees look at me. And I have such a different
relationship with all of my younger deputies because I see
(28:09):
them at the Academy every year, right?
They understand that I'm Justin,I'm not chief deputy and I'm in
the classroom instructor Miller,right?
Whatever they end up seeing the human side of me in and I hope
and I always tell them, I hope that lets you come and just talk
to me whenever you want. And I would say that it's
working because my door is always shadowed by somebody,
(28:31):
which you can't say that, right?You hear people say all the time
I have an open door policy, but then they don't talk to people.
But these are my hours. Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one. Jennifer I.
Think that vulnerability is a huge piece of it.
And you know, I really would love your feedback about this
because I think that training isa first response is about
(28:51):
protecting all your vulnerabilities.
It's about your gear and your equipment and how to respond in
a way that you're not vulnerable.
And then there's this aspect of mental Wellness and mental
health where, you know, what I ask a client to do who meets
with me is to be vulnerable. And that being said, I've been
interrogated by first responders, our first sessions
(29:12):
and things. And I I respect that.
Like I'm a complete stranger. Don't come and tell me your life
story if you don't feel comfortable with that.
But I think that is, and I thinkthe EMDR process is 1 about
vulnerability and exploration. And I do think that takes
incredible courage. And there are some things that
feel really out of control sometimes with our feelings,
(29:33):
which kind of locks up our vulnerability.
Like it feels like I need to control that more than
recognizing, hey. And in this experience, I think
what you described about being just emotionally drained,
exhausted, you know, that's sucha cathartic.
Like floodgates are open and we're free from it though.
Like it's not that, oh, I feel that dam back up and I'm
(29:53):
building all these bricks. It's like, no, EMDR is about
like letting those things go andbeing able to kind of shift your
brain in a really beautiful way.Yeah, I would agree.
I mean it's it's night and day and you know, you asked me a
question and as you were just explaining that, it made me
think of something about the confidentiality.
I think that's what scares. Yep, everybody, not just first
(30:14):
responders, everybody. And I think I have the cheat
code for that because I worked in psych, right?
I understood that it's not in, I'm still last year, right?
Therapist need therapy too. When I was in the mental health
field and I worked in inpatient psych, we had the keys.
The inmates, the inmates, the patients didn't, right?
That was always the joke. Well, we have the keys.
(30:36):
That's the only difference between them and us, right?
But it was even back then, when I was in the Navy, it was if you
walked out of the psych ward andwalked into the clinical side to
get therapy, everybody would talk about it, right?
So nobody did it. I was lucky to have a very good
doctor there that I've seen Backroom, if you will, right?
(30:59):
And it's just they like, and that's one thing I preached from
my standpoint as administrators,the confidentiality,
confidentiality and what I preached to my supervisors is it
only takes one time for you to slip with something that it's
going to ruin this whole program.
You know, and I know Ashley probably she looks at me a
little bit out of the corner. I sometimes because I speak
(31:21):
freely about pretty much everything, right?
I don't have like I don't there's I don't have anything to
hide, right. And you talked about the
training aspect, right? And I don't train any of the Hut
stuff or the yeah, I don't do like defense in the rest, I
guess. I think I always say I train the
mind and the heart, the stuff that I train because that's my
passion. They made me a firearms
instructor. And let me just tell you, it's a
(31:43):
joke around here because. You could hit the broad.
I'm not a firearms guy. I mean, I don't, I have them,
but I'm, it's not my passion, right, right.
My passion is Wellness in the mind and heart and just making
sure that ethics is my passion because you always have to do
the right thing. I give them the cheat code to
not get fired. I said, don't lie.
(32:04):
You won't ever get fired, right?Well, there's many other things
you can do, but you know, so I think that's the difference in
with me and opening up Doc G is that I just I wasn't if even if
there wasn't a confidentiality slip, I don't care.
I personally don't, but there's every other person does, right?
And we have to make sure we protect that personal nature of
(32:25):
that relationship between the clinician and their patient.
I mean, I tell clients the firsttime I meet them.
I mean confidentiality is the only thing Ioffer you because
you can go talk to a friend. You can.
Obviously I have training and other things, but that truly is
the foundation. The cornerstone of therapy is to
say whatever you should share with me will stay here that
(32:47):
nobody else is ever going to know here have this information
and last three things she told me you're going to harm somebody
harm yourself or any concern about a child safety.
But that's. The wrong person and all you
have to say is like a shallow rest because they know that,
right? There's only a few things you
shallow rest on, right? There's only things that I shall
lose my ear. Confidentiality.
(33:08):
Exactly, exactly. And I unfortunately, I think
sometimes that's not emphasized enough.
And so I appreciate you bringingup that confidentiality.
It's important. It's Vegas rules, you know, like
what's said here stays here kindof thing.
It's probably the most importantthing for this program to
succeed other than doing the work right, but without
(33:29):
confidentiality or in or the perception right.
And I've had to break that perception a few times already
within our short period of beingin a program is I don't, I don't
know nothing. I don't want to unless you sit
in my chair and tell me something.
But even if that happens, I'm not telling your story unless
you want me to. I'll be more than welcome.
I've in fact, he's not my first guest in suicide prevention.
(33:52):
I've brought officers, detectives that have had things
going on in their lives and theywant to come and make sure that
those new officers understand that alcoholism is real, that
drug abuse is real, right? So I just wanted to kind of
validate what I was telling themwith a professional.
She's like, you already said everything.
Yeah. Well, so in this your passion
(34:16):
being Wellness, the mind, the heart, which I just wanna come
back to, it's like a way to protect those things is again
this vulnerability and just really reinforce that.
But I think that leads to, you know, a kind of a bigger
platform in terms of Wellness. So I wanted you to talk a little
bit about your guys exciting news.
(34:38):
If we could talk some about that.
Yeah. So we're going to present
together at the International Law Enforcement Educators and
Trainers Conference. So as Alita in March, it's March
16th through the 21st. It's in Saint Louis, not the
greatest time to go to Saint Louis, but it has really good
food, so I'm a foodie. Yeah, we're super excited.
(35:01):
I think that it's just another step in the right direction,
right? Like and well.
Can we back up and just kind of share a little bit of like how
this little seed was planted and, and maybe I did hear Ashley
messages of like we have to get a proposal together ASAP and.
Again. Again, the hey.
(35:21):
Yeah. Hey, I'm going to give you 10
minutes, Ash. I'm going to give you 10.
Minutes. It was actually tell us the
story a little. Less than 24 hours, but so I've
been involved with that leader for over 10 years.
It's is the biggest training conference.
So it's a conference for all lawenforcement trainers to get
(35:42):
training. There's breakout sessions,
there's you can get certified inthings, you can go to live fire.
There's a vendor hall, like everybody's there, everybody the
who's who, who do you want to buy your stuff or what kind of
cool equipment you know, do you want to give them to education,
mental health? She'll see probably some mental
(36:03):
health like platforms like we have Cortico.
There's all these different appsthat you can use and things like
that. It really is because it's born
out of our agency. The founder of Ileda is from
Wisconsin. Rich Hayden, who was a old drug
unit Lieutenant, has been a partof it since inception.
(36:25):
He wasn't the founder, but his best friend was.
They did a lot of training. I can't think of his name right
now of the founder, but Rich Hayden retired two years ago and
my old training Sergeant, Sergeant Ray Merlin is now the
one of the directors or be director.
So we've always had, it's alwaysbeen something, even though it's
(36:45):
international, it truly is. We've had last year was Germany,
the year before we had Romanian agencies there.
I met a gentleman who's there every year from Italy.
He's a really good trainer and and we become friends.
It's just a really good networking in terms of training
and just getting to know what's out there for that.
(37:06):
And they've been begging me to do leadership or Wellness
training. I get nervous about you're going
in front of trainers, right? It's one thing being in front of
recruits and I'm probably freaking Ashley out here a
little bit. Yeah, I was like, this is good.
Here we go. And as a trainer going to a
training conference, right? What do we do?
We sit there and we're like, well, you couldn't do that
better. You couldn't do this better,
(37:26):
right? That wasn't that great, but as
I've grown in even that conference, it's not about you.
You know you don't. It's really not about you.
And you don't do that to your shipmates, if you will, because
I was in the movie, but of. Course, I knew where that
reference was. You know, you just build them
up, you give them good feedback,constructive criticism, How can
they make it better? Because a lot of these these
(37:47):
guys and gals are return trainers.
So they but they want new and innovative things every year.
So when Ashley and I originally talked about it, I wasn't
thinking about the training aspect, right?
I wanted to spread the word about our program, right?
The title of our program was going to be called The Beauty
and we right, the beauty and theadmin beast, right?
(38:10):
And just cuz talk about that, you know, cuz like last time I
was on right with the, the administrators always getting a
bad name and so that was going to be the title, but it didn't
fit because they need something.How can the trainers go back and
train their agencies? So we had to adjust on the fly
and and when I say fly, I mean like Mach speed.
(38:34):
I'm again familiar. Was talking to Ashley that
morning and like this is due tonight.
We got it done. Yeah, yeah.
It. Did.
Yeah. Well, and obviously it was in
March when it was happening, andI think that was in October that
it was due. Yeah.
And I was like, oh, we have so many, we have so much time.
It's not even until March. It was just by half chance.
I literally just like looked it up, when's the deadline?
(38:56):
And it was that next morning andobviously knowing the folks and
Joe Willis is, is one of the directors too.
And he was he's a big Wellness fanatic.
I would say somebody that I wishthat I could train like because
he has like that photographic mind.
He doesn't need any props, no power.
Like he's a right, just knows his material, which I probably
(39:20):
do. I just give my I don't give
myself enough credit. Yeah, it's.
Going to say nice to hear you. Say that.
But he, he's, he was really good.
But anyways, he's in charge thatall the proposals.
So I'm like, hey, can I get a day or two extension?
He's like, well, just give me something.
So we did, we're going to be there.
And they changed the format a little bit this year.
(39:40):
So we have one session, We have 4 hours to give our message to
whoever shows up and it's well attended.
Yeah, internationally, I mean from all over the world. 1000
folks that will be in attendance, not necessarily to
ours, but because we have competing minds that they want
to hear but they don't know yet.But so if we go the following
(40:02):
year, everyone, there'll be 1000people.
I guess there will. So tell me the the title that we
landed on and like what your oh wait, wait, we don't have a
title. Yeah, he's got to pull it up.
But I think from my from my likepoint of view though too, when
you ask that question, like he'smore logistical of how this kind
(40:23):
of came about. But to be honest, everything
we've just talked about on this podcast is why this came about,
right? So there's a lot of beauty in
the work that he's done and the teamwork that we're doing
together and just the excitementI think to hopefully share.
I mean, I think him and I both get along so well because we're
both driven in the same way and we want to make change.
And so being able to utilize hisstory, some of the background
(40:47):
stuff that I know and just really come together to help
others implement at their departments is a huge goal that
we both have. So that's why on my end that
this whole conference came around as well.
Well, I'm so excited and I thinkwhen the call hits home is so
excited to be. Well, that's right.
Didn't. Talk about that.
The biggest, sorry, sorry, everybody, some very exciting
(41:10):
news is that at this conference,we get to the podcast live.
So like when the call hit home is going to be pretty active
throughout the week at this conference, which is going to be
bringing a lot of information toeverybody who listens.
And this guy next to me, well, Iguess they won't be able to see
him, but Chief here will be kindof stepping in and hosting.
Yes, so we are excited and I think it's incredible, you know,
(41:33):
and I want to say just kind of as Ashley said for you, chief,
but I want to say for Ashley, I think Ashley, your passion and
your drive is a really a part ofwhy the when the call it's home
gets to be a part of this conference.
And again, I think to take what you guys are doing at your
agency and saying, Hey, this is what's really working for us,
see if it works for you. I think it's great.
(41:54):
I think it's really powerful when we have something and we
want to share it. I think sometimes we have things
and we want to hoard it or say, well, you got to buy this
curriculum if you want to do it instead of realizing like, hey,
there's plenty like this stuff can be shared.
It's it's a real fire. No, I'm actually more excited
about the podcasting than I honest.
I'm a little ADD just a touch right.
(42:16):
And so that's an understatement.I get it.
I'm like, hey, we could have like guests.
I was like, I could set up just like super cool people to come
on and talk that have the same passion as us and we could show
your your listeners or right that it's not just in Kenosha,
WI, but I mean, and they care for.
Somebody from Italy, I. Mean, not badass that when the
(42:37):
call hits home is gonna have that stuff on there, you know,
like. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, we're, I'm, I'm really excited about.
Well, I'm excited about Yale passion and efforts, and I am so
excited that when Nicole hits home, just going international.
We got to give you the the titleof our because we we went from.
(42:58):
In the admin. In which everybody who knew that
was like, Ashley, you have to change his mind.
And I was like, I he's committed.
I'm like I was I. Was pretty nervous.
He was pretty committed and I was like, oh, OK, but what is
it? Tell me I was going to the the
introduction to that what to ourthing was I was going to have
(43:19):
them guess which one of them, which one of us are admin crisis
response training, bridging clinical and administrative
perspectives. So that is what we landed up
much more. Professional.
Very professed. And then like, there's a little
(43:40):
bit of an age gap. No offense, chief.
And so my brain, every time he says that goes to the Justin
Bieber song. Does anybody is a beauty and a
beat? No, nobody knows this.
And I was like, well, I can't get over that.
Wear my yellow dress so. Can I just make a comment since
you did try to roast our firefighters, pun intended?
(44:03):
I think your mustache chief, I mean, thank you.
You're trying to cosplay a firefighter with that this.
Is big happy ass. It's fine.
I I do it, you know, and since we're roasting, I do admire them
for being able to sleep and playvideo games and eat and.
Wait, All right, Ashley, go. Ahead edit put this in the edit.
(44:25):
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
But no, we're really excited like for everything that's
coming for real. And she thank you for sharing
your story, your part, yes and thank.
You for coming back and giving your time again, we really
appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jennifer, you got anything you want to sign off on?
No. I just appreciate everybody.
All right, Well, when the call hits home, Jennifer and I are
here for you. Thank you guys and stay tuned
(44:47):
for super. All right, bye.
I knew that I needed to get things out right.
I knew I couldn't just forever hold everything inside and be
well and preach Wellness to my people and my staff and expect
them just to do what I wasn't doing.
I'm a walk the walk, talk to talk kind of guy, right?
I was testing her out. Yes, he was.
I mean, I was, but it was like our first session was really
(00:24):
good and I was just like, OK, well this is way better than I
anticipated. Welcome back to the podcast.
I'm Jennifer. And I'm Ashley.
I think this might be. Is this our first repeat?
Yeah, besides your dad, right? Yeah, she never counts for
anything. So this is like a pretty big
deal that we definitely wanted you back on.
(00:44):
So introduce who we got here with us.
I will introduce him. So I we have my chief deputy
back and we are excited. So if you guys remember a few,
well, it's been a while now. Yeah, episodes ago, he was on
kind of talking about admin and what that looks like in terms of
leadership and mental health andall the things that we're trying
to implement here together. But also one of the episodes
(01:05):
that Jennifer and I did, we stressed EMDR heavily.
And something that Chief is incredible about is sharing his
experience with EMDR. So we thought it would be cool
to have him back on because not only is he going to help us
navigate a little bit of the personal side of EMDR, but we
also have some exciting news to share.
Thank you for. Having me, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I don't know if I want to start the whole EMDR
(01:27):
conversation. You could, yeah.
At least leave me to the water. Oh, don't worry, We'll we'll
lead you right there and you're gonna, you're gonna drink up.
Well, I'm excited that you're back.
We had a lot of great feedback about your last episode and you
know, I think it takes a lot to be in leadership and say, hey,
there's bridges that we really want to bridge together.
(01:48):
Like we're not the enemy. We're trying to figure this out
and the best way possible. I definitely appreciated like
your fever for reading and the research that you do on
leadership and trying to find that information.
So I think that that's powerful.And I think you guys are feeling
that up there, right? Like obviously and anything
(02:08):
that's hard, there's always growing pains, but it sounds
like your guys work because really paying off some.
Yeah, I just wish the reading was more contagious.
I like to ask them to read a lotof books, so they get a little
little angry with me when I'm pushing books on them all the
time. So yeah, they do some.
Yeah. Do they like audio books?
I love an audio book. Yeah, and there's times where
(02:30):
the author is not so. Say less, Say less.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A voice of a voice of somebody
reading a book can be. Oh my, it could be hard
sometimes. But yeah, no, I think our
program is actually, we can give, I don't, we've been really
working hard. So we have a lot of things that
have started for us here and she's been amazing helping us
(02:52):
push that along. And I, I think I stress a lot
too that it's different for our department because he is so
hands on, but in the most like, beautiful way.
Yeah. Like this is his baby.
Like he truly wanted a mental health program for his people,
which is inspiring and really encouragement.
So him and I work very closely together to make sure these
things happen. Just kind of following his lead
and making sure we get it done. But we just implanted neck up
(03:15):
check UPS. Yeah, that was just started this
year and I think last report I got is they're filling up fast.
We the first report I got was like the 7th day of January and
all of February was filled. Oh my goodness, that's
incredible. Yeah.
Very. Yeah, I'm a little bit bad for
Doc Chi here, you know, because she has a lot of appointments
(03:36):
now. But that's the whole point of
it, right? I think she enjoys being busy.
I won't speak for you, Ashley. Sorry.
I. Do I most definitely do.
Well, that's incredible. I mean, you said, you know, this
year and I'm like, gosh, we are this year is not very old.
So I mean, that's incredible that all those things are
happening. And I do want to just echo what
(03:58):
Ashley said in terms of like, I can tell that you really care
about your department and it is your baby in a way that's
really, it's a beautiful thing for sure.
Yeah. So let's lead into to something
a few months ago now, I had gotten a text from him and it
said, Hey, like, are you free inlike 10 minutes?
Because you know, my life, it just runs on chief time.
(04:18):
So I was like, I guess, and I went and we spoke to what was it
the the accident. Meeting I was teaching officer
Wellness too, for the state of Wisconsin at the Gateway
Technical College Academy and I was teaching suicide prevention.
So I thought it was a great idea.
And timing is that's that's irrelevant.
(04:38):
You know, I think I gave her more in 10 minutes.
This is, you know, maybe like anhour and 10 minutes.
But yes, I said, Hey, if you have some time, can you stop
over because I would really loveto introduce her.
I had my own deputy candidates in there, recruits and just to
show other agencies they're recruits.
Like this is real, right? Because I preach it in the
Academy all the time. I talk about how the stigma is
(05:02):
breaking, right? We're doing a really good job of
breaking down those barriers. But it takes everybody to
understand that it's OK to talk,right?
It's OK. And as an administrator, and I
probably spoke about this on thelast one, is we have to break
that stigma and we have to not worry about, well, what is it
going to look like if I do talk to somebody about issues, right?
(05:24):
Am I going to get my job taken away?
Am I going to get put on administrative duty?
And like, you know, the old, youknow, rubber gun squad or, you
know, destiny, we're trying to avoid all those stigmas.
And I just thought, well, it's one thing coming from me, right?
I'm a talking head up there. I said bring in a professional
who can, you know, really give you guys the clinician side of
(05:47):
things and then just show the partnership that we have.
Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. And I think what was cool for
me, even though I was maybe stressed about it, was that I
got to listen to see him interact with them, right?
But what I love, because it's something that I push a lot, is
that he was just a human to them.
It's easy to be admin, I think, across the board, but that's not
(06:08):
what he did. And so something that I realized
really quickly was that he was very open with them about his
own personal life, right? And I think that's the way we
connect with people. And if we're not open and
vulnerable, then we're not proving our point.
And so he had shared with his class about his own experience
of doing EMDR. And I thought that was super
(06:28):
powerful. And then I was like, oof.
I'm going to put him on the spoton his podcast because I think
what's really important to recognize, and I don't want to
steal your Thunder with your story of EMDR, but EMDR isn't
always about the things on the job, right?
Like Jennifer, you and I talk about this, yes, there's
critical incidents from the job that we do work on, but like
mostly in a lot of the times it's our personal lives that
(06:51):
come on to this career before we're, you know, even doing it.
So I want to know Chief, if you are open to giving us, you have
to give us great detail, but if you're willing to kind of maybe
explain at first if you were interested in EMDR or kind of
what was that push for you to actually do it?
I had known nothing about EMDR before I started counseling,
(07:11):
right? I had no idea.
I heard it was a TikTok trend, You know, seriously, I was like,
not on TikTok, but I think my daughter may have said, hey,
have you heard this? And then I'm like, no.
And I didn't pay any attention to it.
So going through therapy and youknow, my laundry list of things
that I'm very open, like Ashley said, like I try to make sure
that my students, even my employees, know that I'm a
(07:34):
human, right? We're all human beings first.
Like, I don't like even using mytitle.
I don't need my employees calling me in just a general
setting. They don't need to use chief
deputy, right? They can call me by my first
name, whatever. If we're in obvious in a board
setting or a like where there's other professionals that are
from the county or the other agencies, then sure, it's
(07:55):
appropriate, right? But in terms of my students,
like the state gives us materialand that material is, I mean,
they've been in lecture after lecture after lecture and that
first, you know, couple at firstphase one is all lecture, right?
And then they start to get out and do things, and then they
come back into the classroom in Phase 3, and that's the last of
(08:16):
their Academy before they graduate.
And this is one of the topics isOfficer Wellness 2, suicide
prevention. So in the past when I've taught
this before EMDR, I'll kind of just give the history, right?
I have plenty of stories. I was in the Navy, right?
I was a psych tech. But I think that you made a good
point about it's not just everything that builds up in
(08:39):
this job. It's other things in your life
too that build up. And when I talk about Wellness,
I talk about Wellness as a, it'snot just one little thing inside
of the bucket, right? It's if you're not well
financially, that's bad. If you're not well spiritually,
if you're not well, you know, everything builds up and you and
if you can't just concentrate onjust mental health, just
(09:01):
finance, just physical Wellness,just diet, right?
Everything has to be in harmony.So when I talk to them, I like
to give them personal experiences.
And some of the feedback we get from the recruits is like some
of the instructors just come in and tell war stories right about
their time on the show. Yep.
You know when I pulled the guy over when I did this right?
(09:22):
But I don't. And you know, I could just be
looking, I get myself the rules,color glasses.
But I think when you make yourself a real human being and
you show them that you also haveissues, even in whatever
position you have, it kind of brings the points home better,
right than just like them watching a video of XPD, some
(09:43):
officer just up there on the screen talking about their
issues and what how it affected them.
I'm real to them because I'm their instructor.
They have seen me now for at least nine weeks and they've
seen all kinds of different sides of me.
Well, now I'm about to get real,you know, and tell them all
about the mental struggles that I've had in this profession.
And they don't all just come from this profession.
(10:04):
So in the past classes, my mom passed away in 2009.
And in the past classes I've hadsuicides in my life of loved
ones. Ex fiance killed herself, like a
lot of different levels of trauma, right, right.
My mom had cancer and she foughtit.
She was a fighter. She fought it and beat cancer
(10:26):
twice in this on the third time,she wasn't willing to die,
right? Yeah.
She didn't have anything lined up for death.
Nothing. She just she refused.
So when my mom passed away, I knew that at some point, right?
But she, I thought 1 so many times that I didn't ever think
it would really happen. And she was 53 when she passed
away. So young.
(10:47):
I'm super young, right? So I struggled with a lot of
things I had, we had some marital issues at that time
because I just gave up on God, you know, and I don't wanna
speak too much religion, but I gave up on God because I didn't
understand, right? I was like, OK, my mom was, she
had her demons, right? But she was angelic compared to
(11:07):
my dad, right? And if my dad ever watches this,
you know what you did, you'll befine.
I was questioning faith and like, why?
Why my mom? Why so young?
My son had just been born. He was three months old.
My daughter was 3. And like, my mom was like her,
her love language was gift giving, right?
(11:27):
What was her, her thing? So my little, my little girl, I
had everything at that time frommy mom and my mom in Mexico at
the time. So it wasn't, we didn't have
like a super like we didn't get to see each other as much as we
wanted to. But she called me every day, you
know? So when she was actually back
home for a family reunion, when she really started taking a
(11:48):
downfall and she was going through a specialized treatment
out in New Mexico where they were doing a trial like laser,
like zapping the boomers off with a laser.
They thought it was going well, but they told her not to travel
strong headed. She had to come home because
there's a family reunion and she.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Badly.
So when she was home, she had a couple episodes where I had to
(12:09):
bring her to the ER. The final episode at the ER,
they told me she cannot travel back.
She needs to stay. Like, she just, she can't
travel. OK.
I mean, she was basically we hadto like, push her around in a
wheelchair. So that day that she passed
away, she was sitting in my recliner in my home, and she was
holding my son, right? They were just sleeping together
(12:31):
in a recliner and she was incontinent, right?
And yeah, so. And I'm like, like, is Owen's
diaper leaky? Owen's.
Gonna be so mad. So yeah, but it wasn't, it was
my mom, right? And and their flight was
literally like 3 hours later. Like they had to leave my house
in three hours and my aunt and my grandma were with and my aunt
(12:53):
was very adamant that she goes home.
She has to go home. She has treatment.
I'm like the doctor said she can't go home and she forced
her. My mom couldn't even ambulate.
She's yelling at my mom to get out of the house.
You need to go. We have to catch her flight and
I'm fighting with them just to Isaid I will take care of her,
just leave her here. And my grandma didn't want to
leave. So it was just a hot.
(13:14):
Mess. Oh, how the dynamics there I
can't imagine. Yeah, they they end up leaving.
She passed away on the flight and they had to make an
emergency landing in Denver to, to wheel her off.
You know, and the real point of that is I couldn't tell that
story in the Academy because I, I couldn't even talk about my
mom, right? You know, the things I cried
(13:35):
about all the time, like it was,it's not fair like that.
My kids will never know what their grandma looks like as an
old woman, right? Like I always wonder like, what
would my mom look like? And knowing my mom, she would
try to stay blonde and and you know, tan and everything else.
So I couldn't tell those stories, right?
I would just I would tell all the other stories, but I never
(13:58):
would. I couldn't touch on that because
and I cried in front of the recruits before, but if I tried
to tell that story, I couldn't even get past that.
I just would like to know what my mom would look like as an old
lady and yeah, just be like I couldn't go forward.
One of many things that led me to counseling with Doc Chi and
she made me make my list of all my traumas in life.
(14:21):
And so I brought the 27 pages inand.
So he's not kidding. Actually.
I don't know how many pages though.
But yeah, I wrote, I wrote down everything from basically my
childhood to where we were currently sitting.
There was a lot, right? And she picked up on because
she's she's smart and she's like, all right, we need to do
(14:43):
this EMDR on your mom. And I'm like, she's like, you
will. And I'm like, I'll try anything,
whatever, let's go. I had no idea what I was getting
into or what I was going to do, right?
And she hands me these two little Nintendo joystick and I'm
like, OK, so. And she explained everything
well and she's like, let me knowif you need a break.
And she walked me through it theprocess, right?
And they're vibrating. And what I understand about it
(15:05):
now is right. It replicates REM sleep.
And I don't you guys connect. It's good.
No, it's nice to hear it from you.
You know what? I mean, it replicates
absolutely, right. You lead me to things to think
about and what to, you know, bring you back to certain times
and things like that. And I mean, I cried a lot, a
lot. It was very difficult.
It still is right inside, but like, to be able to talk about
(15:28):
it without bawling, you know, you know, is pretty cool, I
guess, for lack of better term. My son's 16 now.
And wow, it's only been, it's been what, 6-7, eight months
since we did EMDR. Yeah.
So to be able to sit and have these conversations that I'm
able to have, I mean, I've had Doctor G will tell you, I have
these conversations with anyone that will listen to me, you
(15:50):
know, because I think it's so important for people to
understand how powerful that was.
We were in there for two hours, easily two hours.
And it felt like 20 minutes in terms of like time frame.
But I walked out of there and I mean, I was physically, mentally
drained. I felt like I had just ran a
marathon. I slept really good that night
(16:11):
because I was just like and I don't sleep.
So I was just about to say, waita minute.
It was very, it felt like there was a huge like boulder lifted
off my shoulder to go through that and talk about it.
And when I tell other people that are interested in my the
story, she has certain patients that will come to me because
they know I'm an open book and they'll ask me like, hey, what
happened? If you did this, what should I
(16:32):
do it? And I always tried to tell them
I'm like, look, we did it for another what I thought was a
really traumatic event and it didn't replicate right.
Just because I think somethings traumatic, it doesn't
necessarily mean it is in that world.
And this is just the layperson. I'm.
Looking at it's that notion of right, we had to do the float
(16:52):
back and get him to the point ofwhere this started, right.
And so obviously everyone goes through their own process with
EMDR, but it was one of those things where like until we kind
of healed his younger self and some of those things that
happened, then my mom being a big part of that, we weren't
gonna make huge progress on the now.
It's everyone's journey is a little bit different, obviously.
(17:13):
And Jennifer, you can speak to that as well.
Absolutely, I don't have any issues.
OK. I didn't realize this happened
not that long ago. Like, I really appreciate you
coming. Yeah, you would not know it,
right? We're like 2 besties.
You would never. So let me ask, did you have any
apprehension of like or? I need to know every detail of
(17:37):
what EMDR is before me to try or.
I don't know, I think she gave me the Cliff notes version and I
was like, I worked in psych, right?
And it was a long time ago. So things change and we doctor
and I joke all about the old catatonic shuffle and all those
things. And I've seen pretty much
everything in the psych world, you know, just from being my
(17:59):
training. Yeah.
Working in, in this law enforcement is, is mental
health, right? We're part social worker, we're
part law enforcement. And my correctional officers are
even more so, you know, mental health specialists without the
title, right. So I, I wasn't necessarily
afraid of the process itself. I was more afraid rate of like
(18:21):
what happened, basically me being a bubbling little crybaby
in front of, you know, somebody that I know well, not we didn't
really even know each other thatwell.
Then I mean, she had just kind of been introduced to the agency
and I started seeing her becauseone I know I'm broken, right?
I've seen and I've seen other therapists after the riots,
(18:43):
after COVID, right? The county had offered some
sessions and they're OK. I wasn't life changing or
anything like that, but I knew that I needed to get things out,
right? I knew I couldn't just forever
hold everything inside and be well and preach Wellness to my
people and my staff and expect them just to do what I wasn't
(19:05):
doing. I'm a walk the walk, talk to
talk kind of guy, right? I was testing her out.
Yes, she was. I mean, I was, but it was like
our first session was really good and I was just like, OK,
well this is way better than I anticipated.
And then it was only our second session before we went right
into EMDR. Yeah, I was pretty pushy with
(19:27):
him. I was like, we're not gonna
spend. He's clever, he's intelligent,
right? I had to be a little bit more
direct and like, no, we have to.We're gonna do this.
We're doing these things becausehe can talk circles around me
too sometimes. So I definitely was a little bit
more obviously gauge everybody. But I knew he was ready.
Not only that, but he hits it onthe head when he says for me,
I'm sure there was the nervousness of like, what is
(19:48):
this gonna look like? But if I'm going to be telling
my people to do it right, like Ishould do it myself and I,
that's what I love about him. That's not in the, that's not in
the stuff that the state gives us, right?
They don't give me EMDR, they don't give me the moral injury,
right? And so I'm like putting this
stuff, I just add things. I'm not allowed to take anything
(20:08):
out of the curriculum, but I canadd things, right?
So anything that I can give the next generation?
That won't make them look at talking to someone or Wellness
and as a whole in a bad light. I mean, I'm just going to feed,
right? Well, and I want to reflect this
and I think the power and you saying, you know, if I'm going
(20:30):
to ask anybody to do anything, like I have to be willing to do
that myself. I mean, that's a great
leadership characteristic, but also just the power I appreciate
of you being here. And you know, I know you reach
your community so intensely and I just hope this reaches there's
more people. I am always amazed and I can sit
(20:51):
and give the best sales pitch about EMDR and say, like, I have
seen it transform people and people letting go of a horrific
tragedy that was haunting them or again, an experience of when
we were young and didn't realize, man, I've been holding
on to that for a long time and be so again, like a sales pitch
(21:16):
explaining every detail of neuroscience in terms of what's
happening with EMDR. And there can be some real
hesitations. And yet when I've been involved
in programs where other first responders talk about their EMDR
experience, like how they are ready to jump into the deep end
(21:37):
to say, well, if so and so said,they had a good response.
And it's so amazing to me because I'm like, you know, I
mean, I'm a pretty honest persontelling you like this works.
And yet there's still some hesitation about, I don't know,
like what is this? Is it too woo woo?
Is it hypnotizing me like all these things?
(21:59):
And I think sometimes it is about, and I think such a unique
cultural part of first responders is just saying like,
hey, if another first responder,they get it.
Jennifer doesn't get it. She's not a first responder.
But if I hear this first responder who this experience
and gets it, I think that's really powerful and I feel like
(22:20):
I want to ask a question in that.
What do you guys think about that in terms of reaching first
responders? So I think my story has gotten
out there to people because my old chief deputy calls this the
closet of secrets. You know, I do a lot of
counseling in my office, right? And I've had at least 10 people
(22:43):
in this agency come over and askme about EMDR And, and I, I tell
them exactly. I actually probably go into more
detail. You know, I do believe that.
I believe that. I think there's always been this
fear in our profession in first responders professions.
I mean, I think maybe the firefighters are a little better
at it because they're the huggy feely ones, right?
(23:05):
They can, you know, with a boot and fill it up with cash.
You know, I always say like, yeah, that's, I mean, great.
We love our firefighters. We have to, you know, they have
to always take their. I always say they check the
right box, we check the wrong 1.So I mean, but I think they do
better like the debriefing and all those type of things, right?
(23:26):
And there's always been this, and I can only speak for my
agency, obviously, but there's always been this fear of
feelings or talking about thingsthat are outside of the box, if
you will. We said Lieutenant interviews
yesterday and these conversations that come up, not
necessarily, but EMDR about the culture and having to shift the
(23:46):
culture for the new generation. And in the new generation, they
want to talk, right? They want to they want to be
they want to know that you've see them.
And I think this is part of the change, right.
And I can say that as reflectingover my time in leadership is
I've tried to change, right. I have to be malleable to the
changing of the ways. And that's what I try to preach
(24:08):
to my leaders here is like you cannot stay status quo When they
don't want to read my books thatI like, that's fine, but go find
something else then, right, Right.
Yeah, teaching all dog new tricks, but the old dogs need to
want to learn the OR do something to be better.
Otherwise it's not going to work, right.
You know, you can't stay status quo.
So the discussions were had about that and just changing
(24:31):
things. And what was said was our SWAT
members actually understand debriefs the best because they
debrief everything, right? That's your hardest population
to get feelings out of in in ouragency, right?
Because you know, they right there, they need to, that's just
they're kind of driven to that. But then they'll debrief with
(24:55):
each other. But getting them to open up
outside of that little circle istougher.
So how do I, what I said to themis like, OK, well, let's think
about that and how do we make that come out right?
How do we get them to debrief outside of their little click or
circle? And I don't have the answer to
that, but you know, it's just something that I'm thinking
(25:16):
about. And I took over the captain of
detentions in 2016, late 2016. We had a lot of critical
incidents in the jail, which most do, right?
I wasn't doing anything like there was no plan for our staff.
Luckily, we had a chaplain on board at the time who happened
to be trained in critical debriefs.
(25:37):
But I can tell you when I first started doing them, it was like
1-2 people in in there. And of course, I went against
the cardinal rule. I sat in them, which then I
learned because he didn't know, right?
But I learned that I can't be inthere even though I was a part
of the critical incident because, you know, I was there
for them and everything that debrief is different, right?
So, and then I had to train my, my leaders, my supervisor,
(26:00):
right? You can't be in there, right?
We'll do a separate one for you guys or you guys, right?
And once we broke that out, thenpeople started showing up at
debriefs. Well, then that chaplain retired
and then that fell off. So it, it takes the village,
right? This, the entire agency, all my
administration, all my leaders have to be on the same page.
(26:21):
And they get sick of hearing me preach, I guarantee it.
Or talk about these type of things.
You know, all the time. I feel like my 74 year old
father, right? I tell him the same story over
and over, but it's with the hopethat, yeah, they end up, the
light comes on and they're like,Oh my gosh, you know, and even
if I'm gone and that light comeson afterwards, I'm just trying
(26:41):
to plant seeds, right? Because I'm not gonna fix
everything in the next X amount of years that I'm here nine
months to two years and nine months.
So but. Who's counting, huh?
But. Who's counting?
Not me because he can't leave. I was just going to say, I do
think it speaks volumes to like they've never had neck of
checkups, right? So those are the yearly mental
health check insurance and a tonof departments now across the
(27:02):
United States to them, fire police and you know, some it's
mandatory, someone's voluntary, whatever.
But this is our first year running them.
And so I think it speaks volumesto what we're trying to do and
make that change when people areactually signing up.
It is a brand new concept to everybody.
And yet we have a lot of people on board, which is a beautiful
thing. And I think sharing his story,
being open to doing things like this and being really active at
(27:25):
his department with just being ahuman is why that's happening so
much. And there is a fine line with me
being an administrator and it's hard, right?
Cuz we talked about that the first time I was on, right?
We're not the beast, right? I know.
And in some agencies, I can't speak for that, right?
But I hope that my message, whoever listens to this or when
(27:46):
we go to this conference, right,we'll be able to show that this
is a partnership that has to happen all across the world, not
just law enforcement agencies inthe United States, but
everywhere. That partnership has to happen.
And there can't be a US versus them in terms of how my
employees look at me. And I have such a different
relationship with all of my younger deputies because I see
(28:09):
them at the Academy every year, right?
They understand that I'm Justin,I'm not chief deputy and I'm in
the classroom instructor Miller,right?
Whatever they end up seeing the human side of me in and I hope
and I always tell them, I hope that lets you come and just talk
to me whenever you want. And I would say that it's
working because my door is always shadowed by somebody,
(28:31):
which you can't say that, right?You hear people say all the time
I have an open door policy, but then they don't talk to people.
But these are my hours. Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one. Jennifer I.
Think that vulnerability is a huge piece of it.
And you know, I really would love your feedback about this
because I think that training isa first response is about
(28:51):
protecting all your vulnerabilities.
It's about your gear and your equipment and how to respond in
a way that you're not vulnerable.
And then there's this aspect of mental Wellness and mental
health where, you know, what I ask a client to do who meets
with me is to be vulnerable. And that being said, I've been
interrogated by first responders, our first sessions
(29:12):
and things. And I I respect that.
Like I'm a complete stranger. Don't come and tell me your life
story if you don't feel comfortable with that.
But I think that is, and I thinkthe EMDR process is 1 about
vulnerability and exploration. And I do think that takes
incredible courage. And there are some things that
feel really out of control sometimes with our feelings,
(29:33):
which kind of locks up our vulnerability.
Like it feels like I need to control that more than
recognizing, hey. And in this experience, I think
what you described about being just emotionally drained,
exhausted, you know, that's sucha cathartic.
Like floodgates are open and we're free from it though.
Like it's not that, oh, I feel that dam back up and I'm
(29:53):
building all these bricks. It's like, no, EMDR is about
like letting those things go andbeing able to kind of shift your
brain in a really beautiful way.Yeah, I would agree.
I mean it's it's night and day and you know, you asked me a
question and as you were just explaining that, it made me
think of something about the confidentiality.
I think that's what scares. Yep, everybody, not just first
(30:14):
responders, everybody. And I think I have the cheat
code for that because I worked in psych, right?
I understood that it's not in, I'm still last year, right?
Therapist need therapy too. When I was in the mental health
field and I worked in inpatient psych, we had the keys.
The inmates, the inmates, the patients didn't, right?
That was always the joke. Well, we have the keys.
(30:36):
That's the only difference between them and us, right?
But it was even back then, when I was in the Navy, it was if you
walked out of the psych ward andwalked into the clinical side to
get therapy, everybody would talk about it, right?
So nobody did it. I was lucky to have a very good
doctor there that I've seen Backroom, if you will, right?
(30:59):
And it's just they like, and that's one thing I preached from
my standpoint as administrators,the confidentiality,
confidentiality and what I preached to my supervisors is it
only takes one time for you to slip with something that it's
going to ruin this whole program.
You know, and I know Ashley probably she looks at me a
little bit out of the corner. I sometimes because I speak
(31:21):
freely about pretty much everything, right?
I don't have like I don't there's I don't have anything to
hide, right. And you talked about the
training aspect, right? And I don't train any of the Hut
stuff or the yeah, I don't do like defense in the rest, I
guess. I think I always say I train the
mind and the heart, the stuff that I train because that's my
passion. They made me a firearms
instructor. And let me just tell you, it's a
(31:43):
joke around here because. You could hit the broad.
I'm not a firearms guy. I mean, I don't, I have them,
but I'm, it's not my passion, right, right.
My passion is Wellness in the mind and heart and just making
sure that ethics is my passion because you always have to do
the right thing. I give them the cheat code to
not get fired. I said, don't lie.
(32:04):
You won't ever get fired, right?Well, there's many other things
you can do, but you know, so I think that's the difference in
with me and opening up Doc G is that I just I wasn't if even if
there wasn't a confidentiality slip, I don't care.
I personally don't, but there's every other person does, right?
And we have to make sure we protect that personal nature of
(32:25):
that relationship between the clinician and their patient.
I mean, I tell clients the firsttime I meet them.
I mean confidentiality is the only thing Ioffer you because
you can go talk to a friend. You can.
Obviously I have training and other things, but that truly is
the foundation. The cornerstone of therapy is to
say whatever you should share with me will stay here that
(32:47):
nobody else is ever going to know here have this information
and last three things she told me you're going to harm somebody
harm yourself or any concern about a child safety.
But that's. The wrong person and all you
have to say is like a shallow rest because they know that,
right? There's only a few things you
shallow rest on, right? There's only things that I shall
lose my ear. Confidentiality.
(33:08):
Exactly, exactly. And I unfortunately, I think
sometimes that's not emphasized enough.
And so I appreciate you bringingup that confidentiality.
It's important. It's Vegas rules, you know, like
what's said here stays here kindof thing.
It's probably the most importantthing for this program to
succeed other than doing the work right, but without
(33:29):
confidentiality or in or the perception right.
And I've had to break that perception a few times already
within our short period of beingin a program is I don't, I don't
know nothing. I don't want to unless you sit
in my chair and tell me something.
But even if that happens, I'm not telling your story unless
you want me to. I'll be more than welcome.
I've in fact, he's not my first guest in suicide prevention.
(33:52):
I've brought officers, detectives that have had things
going on in their lives and theywant to come and make sure that
those new officers understand that alcoholism is real, that
drug abuse is real, right? So I just wanted to kind of
validate what I was telling themwith a professional.
She's like, you already said everything.
Yeah. Well, so in this your passion
(34:16):
being Wellness, the mind, the heart, which I just wanna come
back to, it's like a way to protect those things is again
this vulnerability and just really reinforce that.
But I think that leads to, you know, a kind of a bigger
platform in terms of Wellness. So I wanted you to talk a little
bit about your guys exciting news.
(34:38):
If we could talk some about that.
Yeah. So we're going to present
together at the International Law Enforcement Educators and
Trainers Conference. So as Alita in March, it's March
16th through the 21st. It's in Saint Louis, not the
greatest time to go to Saint Louis, but it has really good
food, so I'm a foodie. Yeah, we're super excited.
(35:01):
I think that it's just another step in the right direction,
right? Like and well.
Can we back up and just kind of share a little bit of like how
this little seed was planted and, and maybe I did hear Ashley
messages of like we have to get a proposal together ASAP and.
Again. Again, the hey.
(35:21):
Yeah. Hey, I'm going to give you 10
minutes, Ash. I'm going to give you 10.
Minutes. It was actually tell us the
story a little. Less than 24 hours, but so I've
been involved with that leader for over 10 years.
It's is the biggest training conference.
So it's a conference for all lawenforcement trainers to get
(35:42):
training. There's breakout sessions,
there's you can get certified inthings, you can go to live fire.
There's a vendor hall, like everybody's there, everybody the
who's who, who do you want to buy your stuff or what kind of
cool equipment you know, do you want to give them to education,
mental health? She'll see probably some mental
(36:03):
health like platforms like we have Cortico.
There's all these different appsthat you can use and things like
that. It really is because it's born
out of our agency. The founder of Ileda is from
Wisconsin. Rich Hayden, who was a old drug
unit Lieutenant, has been a partof it since inception.
(36:25):
He wasn't the founder, but his best friend was.
They did a lot of training. I can't think of his name right
now of the founder, but Rich Hayden retired two years ago and
my old training Sergeant, Sergeant Ray Merlin is now the
one of the directors or be director.
So we've always had, it's alwaysbeen something, even though it's
(36:45):
international, it truly is. We've had last year was Germany,
the year before we had Romanian agencies there.
I met a gentleman who's there every year from Italy.
He's a really good trainer and and we become friends.
It's just a really good networking in terms of training
and just getting to know what's out there for that.
(37:06):
And they've been begging me to do leadership or Wellness
training. I get nervous about you're going
in front of trainers, right? It's one thing being in front of
recruits and I'm probably freaking Ashley out here a
little bit. Yeah, I was like, this is good.
Here we go. And as a trainer going to a
training conference, right? What do we do?
We sit there and we're like, well, you couldn't do that
better. You couldn't do this better,
(37:26):
right? That wasn't that great, but as
I've grown in even that conference, it's not about you.
You know you don't. It's really not about you.
And you don't do that to your shipmates, if you will, because
I was in the movie, but of. Course, I knew where that
reference was. You know, you just build them
up, you give them good feedback,constructive criticism, How can
they make it better? Because a lot of these these
(37:47):
guys and gals are return trainers.
So they but they want new and innovative things every year.
So when Ashley and I originally talked about it, I wasn't
thinking about the training aspect, right?
I wanted to spread the word about our program, right?
The title of our program was going to be called The Beauty
and we right, the beauty and theadmin beast, right?
(38:10):
And just cuz talk about that, you know, cuz like last time I
was on right with the, the administrators always getting a
bad name and so that was going to be the title, but it didn't
fit because they need something.How can the trainers go back and
train their agencies? So we had to adjust on the fly
and and when I say fly, I mean like Mach speed.
(38:34):
I'm again familiar. Was talking to Ashley that
morning and like this is due tonight.
We got it done. Yeah, yeah.
It. Did.
Yeah. Well, and obviously it was in
March when it was happening, andI think that was in October that
it was due. Yeah.
And I was like, oh, we have so many, we have so much time.
It's not even until March. It was just by half chance.
I literally just like looked it up, when's the deadline?
(38:56):
And it was that next morning andobviously knowing the folks and
Joe Willis is, is one of the directors too.
And he was he's a big Wellness fanatic.
I would say somebody that I wishthat I could train like because
he has like that photographic mind.
He doesn't need any props, no power.
Like he's a right, just knows his material, which I probably
(39:20):
do. I just give my I don't give
myself enough credit. Yeah, it's.
Going to say nice to hear you. Say that.
But he, he's, he was really good.
But anyways, he's in charge thatall the proposals.
So I'm like, hey, can I get a day or two extension?
He's like, well, just give me something.
So we did, we're going to be there.
And they changed the format a little bit this year.
(39:40):
So we have one session, We have 4 hours to give our message to
whoever shows up and it's well attended.
Yeah, internationally, I mean from all over the world. 1000
folks that will be in attendance, not necessarily to
ours, but because we have competing minds that they want
to hear but they don't know yet.But so if we go the following
(40:02):
year, everyone, there'll be 1000people.
I guess there will. So tell me the the title that we
landed on and like what your oh wait, wait, we don't have a
title. Yeah, he's got to pull it up.
But I think from my from my likepoint of view though too, when
you ask that question, like he'smore logistical of how this kind
(40:23):
of came about. But to be honest, everything
we've just talked about on this podcast is why this came about,
right? So there's a lot of beauty in
the work that he's done and the teamwork that we're doing
together and just the excitementI think to hopefully share.
I mean, I think him and I both get along so well because we're
both driven in the same way and we want to make change.
And so being able to utilize hisstory, some of the background
(40:47):
stuff that I know and just really come together to help
others implement at their departments is a huge goal that
we both have. So that's why on my end that
this whole conference came around as well.
Well, I'm so excited and I thinkwhen the call hits home is so
excited to be. Well, that's right.
Didn't. Talk about that.
The biggest, sorry, sorry, everybody, some very exciting
(41:10):
news is that at this conference,we get to the podcast live.
So like when the call hit home is going to be pretty active
throughout the week at this conference, which is going to be
bringing a lot of information toeverybody who listens.
And this guy next to me, well, Iguess they won't be able to see
him, but Chief here will be kindof stepping in and hosting.
Yes, so we are excited and I think it's incredible, you know,
(41:33):
and I want to say just kind of as Ashley said for you, chief,
but I want to say for Ashley, I think Ashley, your passion and
your drive is a really a part ofwhy the when the call it's home
gets to be a part of this conference.
And again, I think to take what you guys are doing at your
agency and saying, Hey, this is what's really working for us,
see if it works for you. I think it's great.
(41:54):
I think it's really powerful when we have something and we
want to share it. I think sometimes we have things
and we want to hoard it or say, well, you got to buy this
curriculum if you want to do it instead of realizing like, hey,
there's plenty like this stuff can be shared.
It's it's a real fire. No, I'm actually more excited
about the podcasting than I honest.
I'm a little ADD just a touch right.
(42:16):
And so that's an understatement.I get it.
I'm like, hey, we could have like guests.
I was like, I could set up just like super cool people to come
on and talk that have the same passion as us and we could show
your your listeners or right that it's not just in Kenosha,
WI, but I mean, and they care for.
Somebody from Italy, I. Mean, not badass that when the
(42:37):
call hits home is gonna have that stuff on there, you know,
like. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, we're, I'm, I'm really excited about.
Well, I'm excited about Yale passion and efforts, and I am so
excited that when Nicole hits home, just going international.
We got to give you the the titleof our because we we went from.
(42:58):
In the admin. In which everybody who knew that
was like, Ashley, you have to change his mind.
And I was like, I he's committed.
I'm like I was I. Was pretty nervous.
He was pretty committed and I was like, oh, OK, but what is
it? Tell me I was going to the the
introduction to that what to ourthing was I was going to have
(43:19):
them guess which one of them, which one of us are admin crisis
response training, bridging clinical and administrative
perspectives. So that is what we landed up
much more. Professional.
Very professed. And then like, there's a little
(43:40):
bit of an age gap. No offense, chief.
And so my brain, every time he says that goes to the Justin
Bieber song. Does anybody is a beauty and a
beat? No, nobody knows this.
And I was like, well, I can't get over that.
Wear my yellow dress so. Can I just make a comment since
you did try to roast our firefighters, pun intended?
(44:03):
I think your mustache chief, I mean, thank you.
You're trying to cosplay a firefighter with that this.
Is big happy ass. It's fine.
I I do it, you know, and since we're roasting, I do admire them
for being able to sleep and playvideo games and eat and.
Wait, All right, Ashley, go. Ahead edit put this in the edit.
(44:25):
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
But no, we're really excited like for everything that's
coming for real. And she thank you for sharing
your story, your part, yes and thank.
You for coming back and giving your time again, we really
appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jennifer, you got anything you want to sign off on?
No. I just appreciate everybody.
All right, Well, when the call hits home, Jennifer and I are
here for you. Thank you guys and stay tuned
(44:47):
for super. All right, bye.
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