Breaking the Stigma and Providing Support to First Responders | Sgt. John Haddaway of the Baltimore County Police Department

People don't want to express what they're feeling. People don't want to talk about their emotions. And especially I was in the army national guard for 10 years as well. So from a military and first responder background, it's always been you show up, you do your job, you see something terrible and you shove your emotions down and you move on about your day and you don't talk about it. Really trying to change that culture, especially in the job that I'm doing now to allow people to understand that it's okay to get help, it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to have those moments where you just need to process. Because we go through a lot of acute trauma where it's one single incident that is incredibly traumatic. And we go through a lot of cumulative trauma throughout our careers. The average citizen generally will see maybe three or four traumatic critical incidents in their lifetime. And law enforcement officer, firefighter, ems may see the things on a daily basis, multiple times, whether it's a death of a child or a domestic situation turned violent or a homicide or something like that. So it's important to recognize for us as far as first responders, that we need to get help, we need to be able to process and we need tools to be able to do all that. And it's not something that was ever talked about before.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community and in your life. Welcome back, everyone to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Harrison, and today we are talking about mental wellness with Sergeant John Hadaway, who is the peer support and wellness manager with the Baltimore County Police Department. Welcome, John.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you having me on the show today.

Yeah. So I want to dive into your position. I really love the title that it's peer support and wellness manager. So can you talk a little bit about how you got into this role?

I'd say over the past 5ish years, a lot of first responders, police, fire, corrections and telecommunications, even in some hospitals, nurses and doctors, and basically everybody who handles anything that may be traumatic or stressful out in the world have started leaning more towards peer support as a way to support their members and make sure that they are okay in front of triage to see if they need any more additional mental health. I started, I've been on the department for 24 years. I started out in patrol just like everyone. I've done special response team, dignitary protection. I'm a firearms instructor and a general instructor. I've been in the investigations bureau. I've been all over the department. When I got promoted to sergeant, I was placed into the mobile crisis team. So that's our 24 hour a day, seven day a week co responder model that responds to crisis in the public. So our mobile crisis team is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week team staffed. It's a co responder model. So it's a police officer and a clinician. And the reason for that is when you have police officers and clinicians riding together, there's an element of safety there. Unfortunately, when it comes to mental health, people can be just fine when you arrive in a calm state and it can escalate very quickly. So we have police officers there that wear polo shirts and khaki pants and they're dressed down, they're in plain vehicles, so they're not in marked police vehicles. So that way it doesn't further stigmatize that person in their neighborhood because it's not a marked police vehicle sitting out front and they're not in full uniform with all their accoutrements that goes with that, they are able to triage and try to determine whether somebody needs a safety plan or if somebody needs to go to the hospital for an emergency protection. But a lot of times we're able to reduce the amount of people going to the hospital because we're able to safety plan with them or sometimes they just need someone to listen to and in their mind they may think they need to go to the hospital, but they don't. They can actually get services such as an urgent care appointment virtually and other services. They can actually get an urgent care appointment which can lead them to talk to a doctor who can prescribe them emergency medication if they need it. We partner with a company called Sante who provides the clinician side of it and then we provide the police officers that ride with them.

So when you started that work, I'm curious, like, what kind of responses did you see or could you see a difference maybe from when you were on patrol versus the mobile crisis unit?

So our mobile crisis unit has been around since 2001, so it's one of the oldest mobile crisis units in the country.

Wow.

So. So it started out as one car, 9am to 5pm, five days a week, and we've since expanded it to eight cars that are 24, seven, you know, 24 years ago when I came on, mental health was not really a topic where we were there to provide the assistance of triaging and getting people to help. It was more you show up, somebody suicidal or homicidal and you take them for an emergency petition or you show up and you talk to them and you don't really know what to do past that. So since that time we've come around with the crisis intervention training. A lot of officers are trained in that, that's a 40 hour course which is taught by non police, it's taught by clinicians and other providers to explain to law enforcement officers how they should deal with the public and people in crisis. And that's been very beneficial because you see a lot of situations where people are escalated and they can now de escalate those situations and have people be more calm while they're interacting with them. And then at the end result is they don't have to go to the hospital, there's less use of force, there's less people that are getting escalating, committing assaults and that sort of thing and getting arrested. So the whole point is diversion, trying to keep people out of jail and trying to keep people out of the hospital so they can live their lives, get the help they need and be productive members of society. And I've seen a very good return on investment from the programs that we put in place on that as people are less and less likely to have to go to those routes.

I am still stuck on the fact that your department started that in 2001.

Yeah, it's been around for a long time and I guess we just luckily had some forward thinking folks back then and they just recognized the need because as we all know, unfortunately mental health is a crisis and has been for decades. There's not enough providers, there's not enough services and there's really not enough public awareness. So whoever started the team at that point, whatever commander was, had the awareness. And actually I do know who it was. It was a Colonel M. Kim Ward, who was our first female colonel and she had a relative with mental illness, would actually talk about him a lot and she started a lot of these programs and her saying was the soft stuff is the hard stuff. So you know, everybody thinks of mental health as being the soft kind of topic and I don't want to talk about it and that sort of thing. Well, that's because it really is difficult because people don't want to express what they're feeling. People don't want to talk about their emotions and especially I was in the army national guard for 10 years as well. So from a military and first responder background, it's always been, you show up, you do your job, you see something terrible and you shove your emotions down and you move on about your day and you don't talk about it. Really trying to change that culture, especially in the job that I'm doing now to allow people to understand that it's okay to get help, it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to have those moments where you just need to process. Because we go through a lot of acute trauma where it's one single incident that is incredibly traumatic. And we go through a lot of cumulative trauma throughout our careers. The average citizen generally will see maybe three or four traumatic, critical incidents in their lifetime. And law enforcement officer, firefighter, ems may see the things on a daily basis, multiple times, whether it's the death of a child or a domestic situation that's turned violent or a homicide or something like that. So it's important to recognize for us as far as first responders, that we need to get help, we need to be able to process, and we need tools to be able to do all that. And it's not something that was ever talked about before. So right before the pandemic, actually, we had a sergeant in this department named Chuck Hart who kind of started this program up, and he would answer calls in the middle of the night. He would go meet people out wherever they needed to meet, and he would help them through whatever it was, whether it was getting resources or whether it was just a listening ear or whether they needed to go somewhere for a program, he would help them with that. So he really started that legacy here. And then he retired and another sergeant took it over and kind of continued to grow the program. And then I was fortunate enough almost a year now ago to take over from that sergeant when he retired to kind of carry on the legacy of this program and continue to help people and spread it and improve it and grow it. And so it's been a very rewarding work to be able to help people. And I kind of liken it to when law enforcement does a robbery type of detail, where we put people out at a 7 11, right? If their presence is there, you never truly know if it works per se, because you never know if somebody showed up to rob that 711 and saw that police officer there. And it's the same thing for what peer support does. We help people, we provide them with resources, we triage them, but if we give them preventative information. We never truly know if we affected somebody's life and maybe kept them from having suicidal thoughts or maybe got them to agree that hey, they need to go to get treatment somewhere or something like that. So sometimes we get to see it, sometimes we don't. But it's very rewarding to know when you do help somebody that they have taken that advice.

Yeah. What is your why for doing this work?

Well, I came on this job really when I was 14 years old. I started as a police Explorer. So I've always kind of been one who likes to help people and likes to serve the community in different ways. So when I started back in those days, we went on a lot of ride alongs. So you would get paired with an officer and you would go on in almost an identical uniform is what they have. And my very first call, my very first day as a 14 year old was a gentleman who committed suicide or completed suicide on a ball field. So as a 14 year old, I walk into a situation where this gentleman had completed suicide by shotgun and I'm walking around seeing the body and everything that went along with the scene. So really, you know, recognizing those traumas over the years, they continue to grow. Right. You have your personal stressors and traumas, you have your professional pressures and traumas. And right after I started on the job, about six months after I started, we had a sergeant who was killed in the line of duty. I was working that night. So, you know, very traumatic for me. And then 2004 I had actually been away guarding an air force base as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. I came back to the job and I was sitting in a nice Sunny May morning, May 26, at like 9:15am There was a call for a major assault where a young lady who had had her head bashed in by her boyfriend and I was going to meet the helicopter and on my way I crashed into a light pole at 55 miles an hour and was almost paralyzed. But luckily I was flown to shock trauma and Dr. Scalia put me back together metal in my body now from that but you know, again further trauma. But what I recognized during that time and really what led me to this point here was after that is that you start in the beginning where everybody's there right when it first happens. Everybody wants to support you, they're surrounding you, they're constantly checking on you. And the further you get away from that, the less people are checking on you and supporting you, except for your immediate family. And even then sometimes everybody has a life. They don't check on you as often as. As in your mind you would. You should think that they would. And then in addition to that, I was on pain medication because of the severity of the, of the crash. I broke eight different bones. I had a shattered spine and hand and a bunch of other stuff. So obviously they're going to put you on medication. It was a very painful time. But at one point I got to the point where I said, I can't take this anymore because again, you can become addicted to it. And I recognize that, and I don't necessarily believe that I would become addicted to it, but I also didn't want to go down the path. So I ran out. They hadn't refilled it, and I said, I'm not taking any more of it. And I went through a three day withdrawal, you know, unless you experience something like that. And historically, you know, in law enforcement, we see a lot of people addicted to a lot of things and they're going through withdrawal. And you don't have that level of empathy until you've actually been through it. Having the chills, you know, and all the other associated symptoms that come along with it, being hot, cold, shaking, shivering, in pain, not in pain, you know, for three days, and not being able to really do anything about it is a very impactful time. So after I got done with that, I continued my quest to want to help people even stronger. And, you know, whether I am or not, I always feel like I'm someone that people have come to throughout the years, either for advice, experience, mentorship, or just to talk. And so when this opportunity presented itself, I said, this is a time that I can actually go out and continue to help more people and hopefully try to make a difference in what we're doing here.

Yeah, I think I'm hearing you had experiences that allowed you to have empathy for specifically where first responders might struggle, but also where just humans might struggle. Right. And have. Have difficulty in looking at the soft stuff. To quote that founder of Mobile Crisis and the Baltimore County Police Department. I think that's a specific gift. I have worked in my career with quite a few first responders, and I don't know that all of them have expressed seeing that whole picture in the same way. So I'm curious about what you find. I think it's probably changing and evolving also. I started doing this work in 2001, so that was a long time ago. So I'm sure there's been some evolution there. But how is this message to support mental wellness, how is it received in Your department, if you talk to other departments, I'm sure that you do, and just first responders in general. I'm curious what you've seen about that.

Well, I would say that it was very stigmatized when I first came on the job, and really, up until maybe five years ago, was still very stigmatized that you don't talk about it. You're going to lose your job, especially in law. They're going to take your gun, you're not going to be able to work. And for people, that's everything, right? Because you're supporting your families, you're supporting yourself. So it's very important. So they wouldn't say anything. And even nowadays, I actually just talked to a young man the other day who was at one of our trainings, who was from a different department elsewhere, and he worked for a very small department in another county in Maryland, and he went through a traumatic shooting, and he had to leave the department because of the trauma that he suffered and the fact that it was unresolved. And he said while I was talking to him that his department told him that if he had PTSD that he should just retire. And that's very counterproductive for both the human aspect of it and the work aspect of it, because, number one, you want to make sure people receive the help that they need so that they can thrive and be successful in life. Number two, from a departmental standpoint and an employment standpoint, you want people to be productive employees, and you want them to be there and have that longevity. And so if you can help somebody work through that PTS and be able to grow through it and be able to have the tools that they need to process it when anything occurs or they're triggered by anything, then they can be productive employees for the rest of their career. The way that we're kind of turning now is obviously absent being suicidal, homicidal, or committing some kind of crime, where you're definitely going to need that immediate help. And by law, you have to go for an emergency petition. Outside of that, if you're addicted to something, if you have mental health diagnosis and you're off your medication, if you have life stressors that are just overbearing for you, if you have that cumulative trauma and you recognize that, hey, it's becoming too much and my glass is starting to overflow and I need some kind of assistance now. If they come to us, we're able to triage that and get them assistance ahead of time without them losing their job. A lot of times what will happen is they'll come to us. It's all confidential. And I'll caveat that by saying that's departmentally recognized. So in some states. Some states now give peer support members, limited confidentiality when it comes to mental health. Maryland is not one of those states. They passed the bill for the fire department, but not for the police department. So that would really go a long way. And I think it's just a lot of misunderstanding in terms of there's a lot of perception that we're going to cover something up. Right. And that's kind of how the media would portray it in a lot of situations. But that's not the case. It's people that are coming to you with their stress and trauma that need help. And I'd rather get them that help than allow them to continue to suffer and have to deal with that. So, yeah, now we're able to give them off fmla. They can go away to a program. We have a number of different providers that we work with and we're able to get them that help. So when they come back, they can thrive and they can continue in their careers and they can help others. Because we have a lot of people that come back who have experienced a lot of different things. And when they come back and they're better, they've processed through their trauma and they're seeing a therapist and they're on an upward trend. They come back and they can be role models or even somebody that people can look to and say, look, you know what? This person got help. They're still here. They're okay. They didn't get fired, they didn't get suspended. And it's about, it's about breaking the stigma and letting people know that you can get help and also changing the minds of, of leaders everywhere. Because again, it's up to the leaders to set the precedent that we're going to support these people and not stigmatize them.

That right there is exactly it and phenomenal work. Just understanding what trauma does to the brain, it is not a personal flaw. It is. Every single one of our brains, if exposed to enough things, will have symptoms of PTSD. 100% of us might be different triggers for different people. Right. And so when you're talking about this trauma exposure, and I just keep thinking about if we're sending police officers out on the street that have a heightened, even just a few PTSD symptoms, that's going to lead them to react in that fight or flight place right as they're doing their job, or freeze. None of those things are ideal for police work versus being able to address that. And it is so treatable for any listeners that don't recognize that there are so many ways that we can completely eradicate all the symptoms of PTSD for someone, I've seen it happen many, many times. And then they can go into their job from that calm state where they're going to make decisions differently. And to me, that was what keeps us safe. That's what keeps our first responders in a right mind frame to make good decisions as they're interacting with the community. Right. It sort of serves everybody if that happens.

Absolutely. And it creates community harmony because now they can go out and have positive interactions. And it also helps to de escalate situations because if they're struggling with their own stress and trauma and they don't know how to process it, they're most likely going to be more irritated, they're going to be more angry. And when they get to a situation, they're either going to be apathetic to it and not want to deal with it, or they're going to be angry and they're just going to escalate the situation and not provide the quality service that should be provided. Provided. So having them understand that is the most important part. And there are still a lot of people. I mean, we're an agency of around 2,000 employees with both professional staff and officers. And so, you know, you're always going to have a portion that still don't necessarily understand that, but we're trying to get the word out to them. We talk to the recruits in the academy. We talk to each level of supervision when they get supervised. I provide presentations on the brain and how it works and trauma and everything else. Try to get them to understand what's going on. Like our in service presentations. It's what you just talked about. We talk about fight, flight or freeze and how the brain goes offline for rational thought. When you get in these situations, you don't know how to calm yourself. And we provide them tips on how to use breathing on their way or when they're there so that they can bring their heart rate down and bring that prefrontal cortex back online so they can make that rational thought and have all their systems kind of be aligned and attuned so that way they're not struggling and making emotional thoughts instead of rational thoughts.

And how is that received?

It's actually been received pretty well. I explain it in a way of. I like to talk about World War II and Vietnam and the differences there and how they came Back on the ships in World War II and it took a couple of weeks and they were able to talk about that shared experience. So I liken that to officers sitting on a parking lot, car to car or standing in a 711 and they're talking about what they just experienced. And having that ability to talk about it and have that shared experience will help them immensely. If they get back in their car and immediately leave and don't talk about it and continue on their day, they're more likely to experience some kind of stress from it later because they're just going to be thinking about it. They're just going to be second guessing themselves. But if they have a chance to talk to two or three other people and they can sit there and talk together, it's a very positive thing for them. And then of course, in Vietnam, air travel was the preferred method by then. So I actually talked to a veteran not long ago and he said he flew over looking at tanks and he flew back looking at coffins. So instead of having those weeks to process what they experienced, they had hours, they were probably exhausted, so they probably slept the whole flight. And when they got back, they were immediately stigmatized and put back out into society and never truly had a chance to process what they went through. Which is why you see a lot more Vietnam veterans with mental health issues than you do World War II veterans. And it's the same thing nowadays as well, with the current conflicts that we have going on in the world. You know, we're a social media society. We're very. And it's not quite where all the veterans would go to the VFW and sit and talk like they used to. Everybody's more compartmentalized nowadays. So telling them to make sure they're talking to each other and talking about what they're experiencing is very important. We have a clinician on staff three days a week, and then we also have one who works for the department permanently. And they're able to access those clinicians anytime they need to. So that way they can have professional. And that is truly confidential assistance.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So what is your vision for this peer support mental wellness program? What would you like to see more of or what would you like to see happen?

Well, I mean, I have. I have big, big visions.

I want to hear it. I really.

Realistic, realistic.

This is about innovative and inspirational thoughts. So go for it.

I will say there are a lot of departments around the country that are doing a lot of different things and some really good things. Baltimore City Police Department Vernon Heron, he does a very good job. They have been around for a long time. They have a very robust program that deals with early intervention and they have wellness fairs and a lot of different things. We're very fortunate to be right next door to them and to be able to interact with them. I have grown, started to grow along with some other folks, a more regional program that includes law enforcement, fire, corrections, emergency management, EMS and it's all the peer support leaders from around the DMV, D.C. and even Pennsylvania we started to try to get up to. And it's just a group where we can share best practices and training and events that we're doing and all that kind of stuff. So that way if you need somebody to talk to and you may have an idea or you've never done it before, you can reach out to anybody and have that ability to do that. So that has come a long way and that's been a very good thing is just having that network of people who are professionals, who are like minded, who can all come together and share ideas. We just went to a conference in Louisville, Kentucky and they have. The Louisville Metro Police department has a 30,000 square foot, three story wellness center.

Whoa.

It includes a little cafe area where people can pay ahead of time and drop food off with pre made healthy meals. They have equipment donated by Planet Fitness that's maintained by Planet Fitness for free. They have on the second floor an area for clinicians, three or four offices where you can go and seek mental help. They have a big open area where you can have family nights with movies or play basketball and that sort of thing. And then on top floor they have a physical conditioning area and a physical therapy area. So if you wake up and you have a little pain in your elbow, you can go there whether you're fire, police, whatever, and they will treat you right there. And then obviously triage if you need additional assistance. But that's all provided as a service by the city. So we see a lot of these wellness and resiliency centers popping up. So, you know, my dream is to try and get one of those here. Very big task obviously, but I mean in the realistic near term is just to get more training, more information out there. Just get out among the people working here and just talk to them. Because a lot of people won't talk to you. But if they see you face to face and in person, I've had a lot of people where I'm just standing around in a group and the next thing you know they're kind of giving Me, the old like. And you go over and talk to them and they have some kind of question or they're dealing with something and they would like to just run it by and talk about it and see what assistance is out there for them to get help. And to also grow the team, we have ad hoc peer support team members. So I just grew the team to about 32 additional people. But they have regular day jobs, whether it's investigations or patrol or professional staff, whatever it is. But they're available as a resource because when I came on the team, my number one goal is to diversify it, because we all don't have the same experience, life experiences. We're not all the same. We had different religions, ethnicities, races. So somebody may not feel comfortable talking to me. They may feel comfortable talking to somebody else. So I wanted to make sure we tried to have as much as possible. We also have the chaplain program as part of our program. So trying to diversify that and having all the different faiths. So that way for those who are more spiritual, they have somebody they can reach out to who they may feel more comfortable talking to than just a normal peer support team member.

Yeah, that's incredible. I'm inspired by what you're doing, and we are just about out of time, but I want to give you a moment to just say if there was something that you wanted to say, maybe to inspire someone who's looking to take a step toward supporting mental wellness wherever they may be, what would. What would you say?

I would say, just stop. Detach yourself from what's going on in the world around you and just really take a good look at society and what's going on. There are a lot of people who are struggling. A lot of times, I'll say it's like the commercial with the smiley face where the woman's walking around and she has a smiley face on the stick, but then she drops it and she's depressed. People put on a facade a lot, and you never know who's around you. So what I try to do and what I would encourage everyone to do is just talk to people. No matter where you are, no matter who it is, if it's a stranger, just say. Just say hello. That's all you have to say, or, how are you today? Or something like that. And you never know what will happen. I went to the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation Congress that they hold every two years. It was in Baltimore City, and I walked out to put something in my Jeep, and I rode the elevator with a woman that was standing there and all I did was say hello. She asked me why I was there, what I was there for, and we kind of got to talking. I told her I was there for IC isf, and she told me all about her autistic son and all of how he was doing and all kinds of stuff. And I never met this woman before in my life. So you never know who you're going to talk to, who you're going to meet. And it could be a person where they're struggling with something and just talking to them and just reassuring them or providing them support may be enough to help them through whatever they're going through or help them recognize that they need to make a change.

Awesome. I love that. Well, John, thank you so much for the work that you do and it's been a pleasure to have you today.

Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate you having me on.