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LANSING — A young police officer arrived at the scene of a crash that had killed a family of four: a mother, father, a 3-year-old and an infant.
Matt Saxton, who responded to the scene at the time and is now executive director of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association, said he was heartbroken by the tragedy.
But it wasn’t until two years later, when he held his first son, that the memory of that fatal accident brought him to tears.
“I can still picture that family 30 years ago.” He said.
There were no resources available to adequately handle such situations to assist law enforcement officers like Saxton, who was a deputy sheriff in Calhoun County at the time.
Saxton is “I finished that call and went on to the next radio call.”
Many sheriff’s offices now have mental health resources, such as peer support programs, to help officers after such incidents, Saxton said.
One is the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) system, which helps emergency responders deal with traumatic situations.
“When a major incident occurs, we set up a CISM team so that people who are directly involved in the incident can sit down and freely report on the incident.” Saxton said.
“Before we offered the Employee Assistance Program, the CISM Team and the Peer Support Team, paramedics generally didn’t talk about these issues and continued to differentiate between them year after year, and those issues started to pile up.” Saxton said.
Long hours can also be a cause of stress, said James Tignanelli, president of the Michigan Association of Police Officers.
“People are being asked to work a lot of overtime.” Tignanelli said. “It’s not uncommon to work 16- or 18-hour days. This tends to make work more difficult and I think it creates family problems.”
This association is the union that represents law enforcement officers.
The group is based at Wayne State University and works with Frontline Strong Together, which covers all 83 counties in the state.
The program was funded through a state grant to provide mental health and wellness services to emergency responders.
The program provides a 24/7 crisis response and resource phone line offering support to police officers, firefighters, emergency medical services, corrections officers and 911 dispatchers, said Manisha Leary, program project manager at Wayne State University.
He said the call centre has received more than 990 calls from emergency responders across the state in the two years since it opened.
Leary said the program has engaged thousands of emergency responders across the state and the country.
“In terms of treatment, we train culturally competent clinicians so they can see the paramedics.” Leary said.
The clinicians have experience working with emergency personnel and specialise in areas such as post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma, she said.
New technology recently developed by Frontline Strong Together uses augmented reality technology for exposure therapy, allowing for different scenarios to be used in counselling sessions that can be conducted in the office.
Arash Javanbahkt, director of medical and trauma services for Frontline Strong Together, developed the program software, called ExpandXR, which runs on a virtual reality headset.
“We created scenarios of interactions and exposures to public safe environments that they may be avoiding due to trauma.” Psychiatrist Javan Bakht said:
Some environments the program might use for exposure therapy include police or fire stations, grocery stores, or rooms that may contain large numbers of people.
“We’ve used it to treat emergency personnel and it really brings up all kinds of negative emotions.” He said.
“We had officers who were so traumatized and scared of the perpetrator that they were doing their grocery shopping online.” He said. “But after a few sessions, she attended her graduation ceremony, got promoted, and returned to work.”
Mr Leary said the Frontline Strong Together team had spoken to emergency workers about reducing the stigma around mental illness.
“We’re losing a lot of paramedics because they don’t recognize the fact that mental health and mental wellness is important.” She said:
Leary said there is a perception among law enforcement officers that any sign of weakness could mean they lose their job or feel ill-equipped for the job.
Such fears can also impact home life, she said.
“They may not go home and tell their spouses or kids what’s going on.” She said:
“There’s a lot of stress at work. Sometimes serious incidents happen, but it’s usually just a build-up from when you start working.” Leary said.
Saxton highlighted the accumulation of work-related stress.
“The men and women of law enforcement see, hear, taste and smell things on a daily and shift-by-shift basis that civilians never have to deal with.” He said.
