Supporting Your Family While Protecting Others

[00:00:00] Are you struggling to keep your family relationships intact while dealing with the intense stress of being a first responder? In this episode, Tiffany Atala, a licensed marriage and family therapist, dives deep into how first responders can manage work related stress and keep their home life strong.

From trauma therapy to tips on improving family dynamics, Tiffany shares practical advice that you can start using right away. If you're looking for ways to balance your career and personal life, This episode is packed with solutions just for you. Tune in and take the first step toward a healthier, more balanced life.

Welcome to Surviving Your Shift, your go to resource for building resilience in your high stress career. I'm your host, Bart Leger. Where we'll not only talk about responder burnout and our experiences with trauma, but we'll equip you with the practical steps you can take [00:01:00] today to get your mind out of overdrive and find meaning and joy again in answering the call.

As a retired deputy and someone who understands the pressures of first responder life, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to keep your home life strong when work stress feels overwhelming. For That's why I'm excited to introduce today's guest, Tiffany Atala. Tiffany has dedicated nearly 20 years to helping first responders and their families negotiate these challenges.

Tiffany is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 19 years of experience, specializing in helping first responders and their families. She is the founder of Best Solutions Therapy and the Optimum Resilience Program. Tiffany is a certified clinical trauma professional. nationally certified first responder counselor and an [00:02:00] EAGALA certified equine assisted psychotherapist.

She has served as clinical director for first responder wellness and trained many clinicians in trauma care. Tiffany's therapeutic approach includes EMDR, accelerated resolution therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and equine assisted psychotherapy. Her deep understanding of First Responder life is also personal as she is married to an Anaheim Fire Captain and has two children.

She is actively involved in First Responder family wellness and co founded the Southern California Fire Wives Connect Group. Tiffany enjoys working with her facility dog, Bay, who assists in therapy sessions for PTSD and anxiety.[00:03:00] 

Welcome to surviving your shift podcast Tiffany. We're incredibly fortunate to have you with us today. Good morning. Thank you for having me Well from your experience working with those on the front lines and your work with trauma therapy first responder family support I mean you bring a wealth of knowledge and experience that I I hope will resonate with our listeners.

Thank you for joining us Thank you. I appreciate that always excited to help our first responder families I'm married to one, too, so it's just close to home. Well, we've heard your awesome bio now. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I feel very fortunate that I've gotten to spend my last almost 20 years doing what I love to do, which is actually serving first responders and their families and making sure we can enrich the family system.

I truly believe that it's pretty hard to be amazing at work and perform well. If at home it's rocky ground. So that's my life dedication now is to making sure that we can take care of, of those that are out doing the hard work. [00:04:00] And, uh, with all of the newest techniques, all the best trauma care and new ways to serve the family and make sure that we're growing in your job, but also growing personally.

So tell us a little bit about Tiffany. What, what, uh, what do you do for fun? What's family, anything? Well, I just got a puppy last night. Pretty cool bird dog. Uh, he's another Labrador. Um, as you know, I have Bay who's a canine companion for independence, who solely works with our first responders. Did, uh, work with me for years in the first responder treatment center in Newport, California.

And is, is truly trained in 43 commands for, for different things, but around PTSD and, and definitely anxiety. So I love working with the dogs and then obviously second to my family and children, I love working with the horses with our first responders. So we have an equine assisted psychotherapy program and I'm one of those that believe you're going to get better if you're out getting dirty.

[00:05:00] So yeah, that's a little about me, I guess, in a nutshell. Oh, there you go. Great to hear about the dog. I hope you're getting sleep. And I, you got it yesterday, right? Last night. Did you get any sleep? I feel like I have a baby again, and it's been a number of years to have kids. So, uh, it, it'll be well worth it.

You know, how can you say no to a puppy, but my husband's on shift. So I'm sure he's glad he missed out on that fun last night. So I can only imagine. Well, as many of our listeners know, I also have a canine companions facility, dog treasure. And it was so great to get her at about 18 months, fully trained with the 40 some odd commands and already housebroken.

And it's just amazing. I agree with that. So now I'm going to go the hard way and maybe regret this, but, uh, anyways, my kudos to all of those puppy raisers for all of the foundations out there. And, uh, that provide the service dogs provide the facility dogs. That they come, they come trained and it's just amazing who, all those [00:06:00] who volunteer and do those, that puppy raising.

I completely agree, and I'm loving seeing more people, more departments with great dogs, with great dogs, because I think that that's where we open up. It's where humanity shines and first responders and animals go hand in hand. So it's been really neat to see police and fire departments with, with these great dogs now too.

So, Oh, it's amazing. We were at our national night out. A couple of weeks ago and Treasure was with me and we've been going to the 9 1 1 center, the operators and we've been She's been my partner for six years and they said, when are you coming back? You it's been a few weeks. And so we know that having a canine helping them and her, one of her favorite commands is down and roll.

And she loves her belly rubs and everybody loves doing it, especially the kids. Our fire department has a new arson dog and he is just a, he is a hoot. [00:07:00] He's a loving dog. Matter of fact, we were together. I was together with the captain who has her and now that I'm the chaplain for our fire department they were out there together on the floor and and they were the hit of the of the night.

They were playing together and then they eventually lay down together on the floor. It was amazing. Now you've been around first responders for a long time and I'm sure being married to a fire captain Helped a little bit. What got you interested in helping first responders? Well, it's it's kind of interesting I think I always thought I'd be an FBI agent or something but somewhere around the way I got really interested in the brain and therapy and Just went that course in that route and thought well, what if I can do things that'll make it better and more successful career and healthier and happier from our responders.

I have family that are veterans and really fascinated me on how we could do that. First focus being trauma care, traumatology, and then later, fell in love with doing anything around helping [00:08:00] relationships. Because I find more often than not, My cops and my firefighters will come in to see me because their relationship's shaky or on the rocks, not because of the critical incident.

Of course we do critical incident care, but they come in for the family and more often than not they'll say, you know, I need to get better. I need to work on the way I communicate or what have you because I love my family. And I want to be better for them. Not necessarily for yourself yet because most first responders can perform pretty darn well at work until all the wheels are coming off the bus and things are really bad.

They can suit up and show up and do a good job. It isn't until dealing with trauma is the job and the family's falling apart that usually they come for care. So that's how I got really involved and invested in being a family therapist, too. Well, great. If we only had more culturally competent therapists like you who understand first responders, we were talking before we started the interview this morning about Couples therapy, and that's one of the areas that I get more frustrated than anything else.

My concentration was in [00:09:00] trauma, like dealing with the trauma. And when someone comes for couples therapy, I send them to folks like you. So thank you for, for being there for, for couples and families. Oh, please keep sending them to people like me. You know, we, I love what I get to do. That's what I always say.

It's my act of service. And so very grateful and I get excited. And so what we're seeing and we we're looking at is a lot of this conversation about like you know, we're seeing people are retiring from their jobs. You know, You We've got first responders who, you know, they're, they're in relationships with someone that doesn't know anything about first responder family life.

They don't have a parent that came from that or a family and system that understands it. And so what I'm really enjoying is early on getting involved within the system and helping educate the significant others and the spouses about. Shift work, right? And not only that, but the [00:10:00] biological roller coaster that the brain is going to experience being someone that works in a high adrenaline, high need, high risk job.

And so I think that if we can provide that education to significant others and support, It's just going to help the responder feel more safe, secure in their job, in their family system, and then know that what they come home to is someone who has a solid foundation of understanding ways they can decompress together and take care of one another throughout the hopefully 30 year career.

So, keep referring to people like, folks like me, and I've been enjoying training a lot of associates now, uh, to do this work as well, so. Well, for sure. How could we do that proactively? I know you talked about helping families understand about all of the the changes that will take place within their, their lives, their personalities.

How can we do that a little more proactively? Well, I agree proactive is a key word because we need to be doing this from the get go, from the academy, you know, from the recruitment beyond and throughout. [00:11:00] I think that most of our first responders that sit through one of these significant other classes with their loved one, they're half listening because they're so excited to get out and do the job, right?

We talk about mental health and they're going, okay, great. Later, I'll look at that. I'll file that packet you gave me or that book up in my closet. Or maybe it sits in the bottom of their truck bed and gets a little crunched up. But I do find that the significant other is taking mental notes. And maybe the one researching it and it's not till later on that my first responders want to learn more because they're actually experiencing the symptoms.

So then that's why I say we come back again and there's more education and so many great classes. One of the ones that we've been doing nationally is called families on the front line. I'm actually currently writing a class about parenting as a first responder family and parenting as a united front so that you love each other more and you feel connected.

And I think that these classes are really helpful to take, whether it's online, listening to a podcast or just getting involved with, because we all have a lot of good [00:12:00] tips and tricks in our first responder families and we should be sharing those and not keeping them to ourselves. So I'd say from the get go.

Let's start doing this stuff early on the academies. Let's repeat it throughout the career Get some historical knowledge from the couples that have stayed married in this job or stayed together And get the sharing happening so that it normalizes the experience For such an abnormal lifestyle we live as first responder families.

So oh definitely now, how do you propose that we could fold this into Something at the academy level maybe for Some of our academy instructors or our academy directors that are listening to this. There's not a lot of time and post or whoever is responsible for the training for law enforcement or the fire academies How would we how could we do this practically?

That's great I'm glad you're asking that because i'm seeing it more and more i've been getting tons of requests and traveled to so many departments to do this We're finding that being that proactive and folding it in is just only a matter of a few hours And so if we can get [00:13:00] two to four hours and even if it's an evening Like we've been doing where there's a dinner and it's fun and it's your chance to bring the family members in.

I think that's the easiest way to do it. It also sends a message to the significant others and families that it is a calling that you're a loved one signing up for and in turn you are too. And there are going to be times where they're out helping the world and not at home. And so how do we show that we care about you?

And part of that is by providing that education and that dinner or that breakfast in the beginning at the academy level. And it's coming from leadership. leadership and our peer support team saying, Hey, this is so important to your mental health is your family stability and wellness that we're starting at the get go showing you that.

So I hope to hear more and more across the nation from departments as we have in the last couple of years doing this stuff. So having someone like you come in for two, three, four hours, however much time they have, and then maybe having family, spouses, significant others who have been around the block a [00:14:00] few years in the first responder family, who, who maybe have gone through some things, but yet have figured out how to get things back together or, or put things back together.

Back in line would be a good way to get started. Absolutely. And the sharing the tips and tricks, there's always laughter. That's what we do well as we can't joke about it. There's a problem. So, uh, just having these classes where we're not having it cause you're broken and we don't even need to have it just to the Academy.

We bring in our seasoned, uh, veteran families and we talk about it. And, uh, we get some things out there that really are some good ways to manage. everything from being alone as a parent sometimes because the duty calls to a weird division of labor because man I am the trash boss sometimes in our house.

I am taking the trash cans out and you know I talk to other families that are nine to fivers and that's not the life they live and they have Christmas on Christmas. We have Christmas on The 3rd of [00:15:00] January if that's when we need to have it because that's what we do So it's really important to talk about these things in a first responder community level, right?

Now you've helped create programs specifically for first responders who are dealing with trauma. How do you make sure these programs really connect with what first responders need? I mean, what, what kind of change have you seen in the people who go through them? That's awesome that we're even talking about this now because I think we do need to make sure that our programs are evolving.

I've had the opportunity to work at First Responder Treatment Center. And with the foundational levels of that, and as well as outpatient. And I think one of the biggest things that we need to continue to do is be connecting with our wellness programs, if they exist at the department, helping support them, talking to the chaplains, talking to peer support, and then above and beyond that, we need a survey.

We want to see departments that if it's through HR, or it's just through departmental leadership are sending out surveys saying, what are the issues these days? because they've changed. I mean, one example of that is one of the primary issues that I'm [00:16:00] hearing from senior leadership now is that we have a new crop of first responders who a are way more focused on their mental health.

They want to know what is your department going to do for me and for my family in terms of keeping me mentally strong? What resources do you offer? And they're asking those questions in the interview with the chief or whomever before they get started. So that's a whole new way of looking at things versus just suck it up.

And be mentally tough. It's more like how are you going to keep me strong and resilient and make sure that I don't feel like a number. So a lot of our trainings are more targeted towards folks that have their ear half open to listening to mental health and wellness. And they may even come in with some of their own techniques that they've learned

Whether it's through college, whether it's through life experience, or just being of this new generation. Flip side of that is that I've got some amazing senior level first responders, you know, in leadership that are frustrated because they also see that there's sometimes a shift in the way work ethic works these days.

And so we need to be speaking to those cultural generational [00:17:00] gaps as well. Right. We actually had a podcast episode on that, the generational differences and what I get from. The older generation is the younger generation doesn't have a good work ethic and they don't want to work and they want everything handed to them and what took me 20 years to achieve they want it in their first five years and then I hear from the younger they don't listen to me they're all they're they have all these ideas that are 20, 40 year old ideas that don't work anymore.

And so we have all of this that we do. It is a concern. I remember when I first started 30 years ago, no one was talking about emotional and psychological wellness. It was, it was not, as you said, you know, suck it up buttercup. If you can't handle it, go sling burgers at McDonald's. Right. But now, whether people are actually voicing these concerns or not, I really believe that when they begin, whether it's EMS, whether it's fire, police, no matter, even anyone else on the front line, the medical profession, that if they [00:18:00] sense that administration cares enough about them to have things in place, that I believe it, it provides a much better work environment.

And for those of our listeners who maybe are in administration or at the executive level, I These are things that they need to be thinking about. How do we provide a resilient or how do we build a resilient workforce? Absolutely. Absolutely. And we're seeing more and more classes. Um, one of the organizations I've worked with for a long time is, is our FR health foundation and our, our FR health.

companies. And so we have the counseling team international throughout most of California, and they started a wellness coordinator program. And I think leadership backing that and descending their people to get trained in how to develop wellness is big. And then the other thing that I think means so much to our younger generation, our, our newer, uh, Uh, police and firefighters across the board, 9 1 1 dispatchers is seeing that leadership is going to go clean out their brain and take care of [00:19:00] themselves.

Because when you see a captain, a sergeant, a captain, a chief, a lieutenant, whomever going proactively and saying, I'm not just preaching this, I'm doing this because I believe in it. It makes it okay. It makes it something we do for mental performance. It's the oil change we all need for our engine. We go get that clean out so we can be stronger at work.

And it makes it okay for everyone else to go get the supports that a lot of departments are paying for or looking into providing. Oh, exactly. Uh, in a couple of weeks, I've been asked to do a workshop for our state fire chiefs association. And in a couple of weeks, We'll be talking about resilient leadership.

And so, you know, here we'll have executive leadership and how do we build a resilient organization? And part of that is how do we take care of ourselves? Absolutely. I think it's both ways. It's bottom up and it's top down. It has to be modeled at all levels within an organization. I much agree with you. I just [00:20:00] spoke at an Idaho Chiefs of Police and that is literally what we spent most of our time on, was talking about that, that it has to be modeled and then how and when do you take care of yourself as a leader.

Especially when you're on call 24, 7, 3 65 and you have a family too. Right. And that phone on phone jail so you can have a dinner and be present. So these are great conversations we need to keep happening to take care of leadership. So you are in Idaho right now. I'm in Idaho officially now. Yes. Working with a lot of departments here.

So, okay. I was on a zoom call with the CEO of QPR Institute and he's in Idaho. As a matter of fact, When he said what city he was in, it's the same city that my daughter and son in law were living for quite a while. My son in law was working for the university, and a small world, small world, so it's a great, it's a beautiful area up there.

It's beautiful. I liked it. It's beautiful and I am so grateful that we got just embedded into a community. We're here kind of star Middleton [00:21:00] area and it's nice to know that the resources were desired and that they're really proactive with first responder care right now. They're all about making sure that their people are taken care of.

A lot of small departments means they're running on their own people regularly. And it's exhausting. And I think it's important that everyone has that care. So glad to be here. Some great folks up there. Now, I'm really curious about your work with equine therapy. I have an equine facility across the road from my office, and we've done some work with them before.

How does working with animals help first responders heal and Do you have any stories that make a big difference for something? I know you're, you have a new thing that you're launching right now with equine therapy and trying to train people. What, tell us a little bit about that. Well, I'm always excited to talk about equine assisted therapy.

Been doing this 20 years. Love it. I'm a passionate believer of it. You don't even have to like horses to like equine therapy. How crazy is that? We actually finally got to build our own [00:22:00] facility, which is great. are the reason we're here, and it's dedicated to first responders and their family care. So I do what they call polyvagal equine therapy, the polyvagal equine institute, and then Dr.

Steven Porges from polyvagal supports it. And so for those listening who don't know about polyvagal, you do know about it because guaranteed you've trained about your nervous system, whether it's just for you to be really seasoned when you're out at the range or to be able to regulate on a call. You have, we just haven't called it that.

So love to do polyvagal equine work. It's all about the horses being partners in the work that we do because horses are our prey animals and they have a high level of need to keep themselves alive. They're hypervigilant and yet they can be doing all of that and semi present and they're really good models for first responders because of that.

They also work in herds. Safety is a big thing and they communicate in so many ways non verbally. And so through this work with horses, we get in vivo [00:23:00] practice on, you know, how do you move these two from a different region as a team? And what leadership roles develop when there's an informal leader per se in a squad?

And what's it like when you can't communicate? Cause we've come up with silly ways to do things that, you know, maybe you have to use all non verbals. What are you reading about the sizing of the situation? Use of force conversations. We have conversations about, uh, couple's therapy, first responder, couple's therapy is amazing.

How do we have trust in our partner that you don't always have to be the one keeping the family safe? Cause right now we're doing activity and they're leading. So horses are awesome mirrors for us to see how we show up. And they behave different with every single person. Some of the things that happen out there, mind blowing.

I have had moments where I go, I can't even believe this right now. This horse has been abused, doesn't typically join with people, and we've got a gentleman who's been thinking about taking his life, had his gun in his mouth, and has decided today to walk out [00:24:00] there into the arena. And I watched a horse literally come around the person, come up to him as he kneels down, breaks down and put the whole neck around and hug them.

And that is just something I couldn't pay the horses to do it. You gave me goosebumps. Just, just, just listening to that. I love what I love what they can do. So very excited now because. Every week we get to have a fellowship group where whoever can show up. So if you're visiting from, you know, Nevada and you want to come out and just be with other first responders and have a fellowship group, we're doing it.

And if you want to come for an intensive with your spouse or on your own, because you're struggling, we're able to provide that for a few days and it's been exciting. So tell me, Tiffany, for those of our listeners who may have entertained the idea of equine assisted therapy, or this is fairly new, but they're thinking, you know, You know, I've tried a few other things and I'm desperate.

Tell us how a typical session goes. If someone would come to you and say, you know, I've, I've been through, [00:25:00] I'm, I'm struggling with a few things and you get started with a session, but they're an equine session. An equine session. So I'm big on before we even have the equine session. We absolutely need to talk about kind of what you tried and that's good.

And then I'm, I'm big on you wouldn't go to the doctor and give him one of your symptoms. I want to know everything cause we're, everything's tailored approach to the person. But that being said with equine, what's so amazing about it is there's a little chunk of psycho ed. So we go in as a collaborative partners, understanding like, Hey, when do you notice your nervous system rallies up?

And when you notice you're settled. And we do a little bit about the brain and understanding how, when you are in that calmer space, we call it when your prefrontal cortex is on board. And I know you know what I'm talking about means you're more open to connect with people. You're not going to isolate and push away.

And so really, one of the primary things of when Simon started equine is I asked them if they're given themselves permission to play, because if we think about kiddos. Let's go back to when we were kids a while ago. [00:26:00] Um, even kids who are in really tough family environments, I always will ask, what were their best subjects in school?

And usually they'll tell me, oh, it was definitely P. E., if they had a cool P. E. teacher, and recess. And as adults, especially as first responders, you are so reliant on being logical and analytical and finding ways to muster through all of that. A solution to wild situations. And so the more we use that part of the brain, the more synaptic connections we have and the better we get at that.

But what gets lost is the ability to be on that emotional creative. side of the brain, which is the play. And so I find that things that have been stuck and hardened for a very long time for my first responders unlock by one or two equine sessions, where we're not just petting ponies. We're out there doing strategic activities and then processing the metaphor, what it relates to and what behavioral change can happen.

And then they can pursue any other kind of therapy, uh, whether it's AMDR or eye movement, uh, desensitization or [00:27:00] processing is what we're referring to, or I do a lot of accelerated resolution therapy. So all of that stuff works more quickly for trauma when we've given our brain the permission and practiced it live.

So I let them know what to expect. We're going to collaborate. There's no voodoo magic. We're doing this together. And then it's a really about what experience did you have for yourself, whether it's in your nervous system, behaviorally, communication wise. And then how does that now apply to what's next for you, whether it's in your life changes or what you want to do for your own care and treatment.

So since we're talking about effective therapies, you mentioned EMDR and I still have a few when I'm speaking with them. And I said, well, have you considered EMDR? And they're not familiar with it. Can you share a little bit about your experience with that? And I know it doesn't help everyone. And there's various levels of of effectiveness.

Share a little bit about that, about, about EMDR. Happy to share. So, uh, I'm one of those skeptics, so [00:28:00] if you're listening and you're a first responder that's a skeptic, I'm probably the right therapist for you. Same here when I first, same here when I first heard about it and was introduced to it. I signed up for the training.

Oh boy, this is voodoo magic and someone's waving their fingers. I guess I'm taking the training because people say it's good, but I don't know. I very much like EMDR now because I understand the brain science and I think that's key to understanding what's happening. Now, do we know everything about what happens?

No. We're not doing spec scans while someone's doing it. We do have spec imaging scans to show that they're, you know, PTSD shows up in someone's brain. So we have proof to see there's healing. Um, EMDR is interesting because the person's receiving bilateral stimulus through both eyes tracking most commonly.

There's other ways to do it while processing and desensitizing to a target image. And our ultimate goal is not to wipe out your memory. You better have your facts. You need to know your facts. They keep you safe in the future, but it's actually to remove any negative symptoms or sensations. [00:29:00] You know, if you think back on one of your worst calls and you still get sweaty palms or it feels like it was yesterday, we don't want that for you.

That's weakening you. We want you to remember it and know what you learned from it, but not to feel that way. And so what's happening is you're processing through at the same time. All the analytics are coming up and the logic and the experience and memory, you're also processing through the emotional memory of things and detaching those sensations.

I've actually become more of a accelerated resolution therapy junkie because it's newer and it is, I find it to be faster and more effective than EMDR. It's, it's similar to EMDR. But it allows my clients to experience calming their own nervous system throughout the desensitization to the image. So by the time they leave, they feel really confident in their own abilities.

And I've actually become a master instructor for accelerated resolution. So I do both, but I really like ART better. It's just faster. Okay. Well, great. And I'm sure there are quite a few listeners [00:30:00] who may not be familiar, will be more familiar with EMDR, but not as familiar with ART. Right. And it's becoming a lot more popular because it's taking fewer sessions for reconsolidation and always re study things first with veterans.

And so because of what we've been studying with the veterans and then at Yale, I think that people are going to be moving towards that. Either of these, but ultimately I'm a believer that if any of these listeners want to go do something for their trauma care, uh, I go back to what some of the doctors have said.

Dr. Eric Gentry says very well, as long as you're getting a relaxed body state that you can achieve inside of your trauma, like you're bringing it back up and you're receiving bilateral stimulus or some other way to desensitize effectively. And then finally you're integrating your narrative all in one.

And it's probably going to be helpful and work. It comes back to whatever works for you and whatever you're comfortable with. Exactly. So, big fan. Now, you do a lot of work with first responder [00:31:00] families, and you mentioned before our interview started with the Firewives, Connect. Yes. The groups and retreats.

Tell us a little bit about that. I, I absolutely. I'm passionate about working with the families. And I think I mentioned in the beginning, we start at the beginning. Um, I started this Fire Wives Connect to just make sure that there's a place in space where fire spouses from all over could talk with one another.

Ended up doing firefighterwife. com. And I say all this from the FIRE perspective because I, I am married to FIRE and I worked in that, but my experience and background is actually a lot more with law enforcement and now, now FIRE, um, prior to marrying my husband and getting really invested in all that research and time.

So very big in law enforcement, spousal support as well. Uh, we have a number of different departments that have been creating their own, we call it peer to peer support. It's not peer support. They're getting trained in how to be a peer to peer supporter as a spouse. You think about a critical incident and you know, [00:32:00] we do critical incidents trust debriefs, which I think are very helpful.

But what about the spouse when they don't want to have these conversations with their neighbor who isn't a law enforcement spouse? They don't want to talk about the fact that they, now are seeing in their brain the reality that they could lose their loved one. Even though we lived with it, we just ignored it because that's how we survived, but they're seeing it and they're going back to that incident.

And the only people that are really going to understand it are their own people, the other spouses that go through this. So spending a lot more time training spouses in the basics of peer support on how to support one another. at a peer to peer level, understanding mental health, understanding first responder, significant other mental health, and a lot of them are getting trained and creating their own peer groups for their departments now.

So that's been really neat, really neat. Well that's great. I remember a number of years ago we had an ambush in Baton Rouge and we had the officers and the deputies that were involved on that Sunday morning and my phone just started blowing up on Monday [00:33:00] morning. I was boots on the ground. I was there for two weeks And actually that's, I also do work with the FBI, and FBI has two facility dogs, and that's how I learned about the work with dogs.

And I had the handler from D. C. coming around with me for those two weeks. She came after the first three days, and she asked if she could ride around with me, and it's just amazing how that worked. But one of the things that we did was we had a spouse and significant other group session. And Important.

And, uh, I wasn't in on that when we had our, we have, we had a couple of spouses on our team and they led the group and it was a large group and they said it was an amazing, amazing session because we had spouses, families, significant others that wanted their officer or their deputy to quit because they, this is too dangerous because of everything that was going on.

And the, the culture and everyone was against law [00:34:00] enforcement and very, very effective. And so they, they found that it was, it was a good group. I love that you guys did that for them and I think we need to do that more And and as you said so appropriate, it's a separate group It's not the group that the officers that went through the ambush are in that's their critical incident debrief They let they let them voice their concerns and then they addressed the concerns as they came up and What they said was really working.

Well was these Family members who, who had 20, 25 years in, with their, with their family member. And they said, you know, this is not our first rodeo. This is, you know, we've, we've been through, not, not something to this magnitude or this scale, but, you know, this is kind of the pinnacle, um, you know, every day, you know, yes, day by day, we, we worry, but, The chances of this happening again.

And so it was, it was good. The feedback I got for weeks and months after was very, very good for the, from the families and also, and also the, [00:35:00] the deputies and the officers, they said, thank you because they didn't want to quit. Yeah. They said, thank you. Things are much better at home now. Right. I mean, even if there are days where they think, I don't know if I want to do this job anymore, cause that's just part of burnout and life at some point in your career, you're going to think that they still love their job.

Most of the time, trained for it, you love it. You don't know what else in the world you'd want to do other than what you do. Um, and then your spouse is questioning, are you safe? Maybe you should quit and how effective to have more of these resources for the spouses like that. It can't just be the Christmas party.

Although we all love seeing each other and dressing up and saying hi and, and seeing what's going on with your kiddos and your life and where you're moving. It's really important that it extends beyond that into care, especially these days, higher call volumes and stuff. Right. Now you've got experience training peer support teams and first responder departments.

What tips would you give leaders who want to build or improve their, their own peer support programs? Super important. I'd say one, if you're going to build your own peer support program, look to [00:36:00] other departments. We'll share the love. The departments that are successfully doing this, you know, we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Steal their road map and hear about kind of the hiccups along the way and learn from it faster. And then I really like seeing nowadays peer support that it doesn't need to just be interdepartmentally that, you know, we do mutual aid for all kinds of calls, and they're going to be times where. Your department's small and you were on that call or hey, it happened too close to home.

Let's get another department that can come in and debrief you or provide the support. So really getting connected more regionally, super important and how do you do that? If you're a new program, you can set it up that way where you kind of partner with another department. Include a level of care for your significant others.

Make sure it's very clear how they can access resources. If it is a EAP counseling that's provided, a lot of times people are going to call peer support to get those numbers or get that information. So continue to put [00:37:00] that information out, not just to your first responder, because they're not going to take it home.

You know it, you're not bringing it home to share with your spouse. Make sure your spouse has a way of accessing stuff, especially if it's for, Uh, care like EAP counseling that could be for parenting, or for your kids, or your teenagers. That's huge stuff. So really having a good voice in communication.

Those would be my, my number one tips for these days. Because we all know that it's more than just the critical incidents. It's more than just the trauma. That's one of the things that I've been championing lately is the comprehensive peer support, or peer to peer counseling, or para counseling if you want to be a little bit more, more technical with it.

Is sometimes it's just, Hey, we got, I'm having trouble with my teenager or, you know, here I am, I'm working two jobs, three jobs, just trying to make ends meet. And, you know, it's my finances are in a mess and I just need to talk to somebody and, but then hopefully they can liaise with, with other resources that they can, [00:38:00] they can help them with.

So very, very important. Absolutely. Well, thank you for being with us today. Any final parting tips. I know we like to be action oriented in this podcast. Where we can hopefully leave our listeners with two, three, four things that they can just Go and try what what would you leave us with? I would definitely say since as I mentioned so much that I think it's important That we look at the family system i'd say, you know Make sure that the book on your dresser isn't always about how to build the new Rifle, I'm saying that facetiously, but we do have those books on our dressers to make sure that we're looking into what kind of resources are going to strengthen your family unit.

And you may be someone that just even listening to this podcast today, gave you some ideas of conversations to have with your significant other, making sure. They feel included. Uh, recently there's a good book that came out called Living Blue and I share in there some tips just for couples and for the family system.

So I would definitely access some of [00:39:00] those. It is important that they are tailored to first responder families because as much as we're just like anybody else, we're unique too. So I'd say that. Talk to your family, talk to your significant other about how are we going to have these crucial conversations when there are critical incidents.

What kind of conversations are we going to have, depending on the kids age, about their fears about mom or dad being out there and staying safe because that's the reality of the world we're in these days. And so pre conversations are always important. And then finally, if you're feeling like, gosh, darn, I'm just.

It really admitting to myself that there is some old junk I need to clean out you doing it You're functioning, but you just don't want that to haunt you when you finally get to retirement I'd say go look into something like one of these trauma cares accelerated resolution EMDR Equine assisted psychotherapy and and do some work on you because you're gonna be so much stronger than everyone else That looks strong and they break down in retirement.

I see them in my office, so I'd rather you come out strong and those would be my main tips. [00:40:00] Feel free to reach out to if there's anything I can provide resources or share. That's great. How can our listeners get in touch with you to find out more about what you do and, and maybe how they can get involved with.

your equine assisted therapy. If they'd like to go up to Idaho. Absolutely. Uh, well my website's best solutions, therapy. com best solutions with an S therapy. com. And they're always welcome to email me. I answer directly best solutions, therapy at gmail. com. Don't hesitate. If I don't have the resource, I'll do my best to point you in a direction, but please reach out.

Okay, great. Well, Tiffany has been such a privilege to have you on the show today. Your dedication to helping first responders and their families is really inspiring. And I know our listeners have gained a wealth of knowledge and hopefully some practical tools from this conversation. So for those of you out there who resonated with what Tiffany shared, don't hesitate to reach out and take the next step in your wellness journey.

Well, thanks again, Tiffany, for all you do and for spending the time with us today. [00:41:00] Thank you, Bart. And thank you for making this available to everybody. All right, have a wonderful day. Take care.