Resilience Development in Action: First Responder Mental Health

Send us Fan Mail Your toughest calls do not end when the radio goes quiet. They follow you home, into your sleep, and sometimes into the choices you make to cope. I sit down with Kevin Lewis, a Navy veteran, martial arts Hall of Famer, and longtime executive protection professional, to talk about what he has learned in zero-failure environments and why his book Better Today Than Yesterday is built...

Send us Fan Mail 300 episodes doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you keep showing up for the work and because a community of police officers, firefighters, EMS professionals, dispatchers, and paramedics decides that mental health matters enough to press play again. We’re sharing a rare solo update to celebrate what’s coming next for Resilience Development in Action and to say a sincere...

Send us Fan Mail Trauma doesn’t end just because we’ve learned how to function. Susan Snow knows that firsthand, and she shares the moment a “normal day” cracked open years of buried pain when live coverage of the Columbine shootings triggered flashbacks to the night her LAPD detective father was killed. What follows is an honest look at PTSD, suicidal ideation, and the exhausting cost of wearing...

Send us Fan Mail A single phone call can split your life into “before” and “after” and for police families, that split often happens in public. We sit down with Susan Snow, author of The Other Side of the Gun: My Journey from Trauma to Resiliency, to talk about what it meant to lose her father, an LAPD robbery-homicide detective, in a planned assassination on Halloween night in 1985. Susan takes u...

Send us Fan Mail A retired police K9 can survive ten thousand searches and still be taken down by one ordinary day. Chris joins me to tell the story of Tambo, the working dog who powered through years of wear and tear, only to face a sudden medical emergency that no handler is ever ready for: a ruptured spleen mass, internal bleeding, and the terrifying words “he might not make it.” We unpack what...

Send us Fan Mail A dog that “can’t bond with anyone” sits in a kennel, passed over by handler after handler, until one leader recognizes something painfully familiar in those guarded eyes. We’re joined by Chris Bingham, a veteran law enforcement officer and longtime K9 handler, to talk about the kind of first responder mental health story that doesn’t get enough airtime: abandonment, mentorship, g...

Send us Fan Mail The hardest part of first responder mental health is not admitting trauma exists, it is admitting it counts when it happens to you. In part 2 of the interview, Steve Bisson sits down with Dana DeLorenzo to talk about the pressure points that quietly push police officers, dispatchers, and other first responders toward PTSD, burnout, and early retirement, especially when the culture...

Send us Fan Mail A police officer who becomes a therapist sounds like a plot twist, but it’s also a rare window into what first responder mental health really needs. We’re joined by Dana DeLorenzo, a retired transit police officer and now licensed mental health counselor, and we get honest about how the work changes you. Not the dramatic moments the public sees, but the daily accumulation: the str...

Send us Fan Mail The calls that keep coming back aren’t always “police problems” they’re often people problems that never got solved. I’m joined by Amanda Rizzoli, clinical program coordinator with Milford Police Department in Massachusetts’ Family Services Unit and Community Impact, plus Detective Cody Carneiro, to pull back the curtain on what a Family Services Unit actually does day to day and...

Send us Fan Mail The hardest part of getting help in public safety is not finding resources, it’s knowing who you can trust when the stakes are your career, your reputation, and your sanity. We pick up part two with employment attorney Bridget Truxillo to talk candidly about where union support shines, where conflicts of interest can quietly derail you, and why an outside employment law perspectiv...

Send us Fan Mail A career can end without a single bad call. Sometimes it’s the station politics, the paper trail, and the quiet retaliation that do the damage and it can hit your mental health just as hard as anything on the street. I sit down with Bridget Truxillo, an attorney, former deputy sheriff, and former SWAT team member, to talk about what happens when the workplace becomes the stressor...

Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to miss someone in pain is to only believe the “approved” version of distress. We sit down with Liana Lucine, a former UK London Met police officer and trainer, to unpack how stereotypes shape everything from mental health calls to workplace culture and even how we label victims. When anxiety, depression, grief, or trauma don’t match the mental picture we expect, t...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever wondered why some calls escalate fast while others calm down in minutes, the answer usually isn’t “more force” or “better scripts.” It’s the human skill that gets trained the least and judged the most: how we talk to people when they’re at their worst. I’m joined by Liana Lucine, a former Metropolitan Police officer in London with 18 years on the job and deep experi...

Send us Fan Mail Your body can hit full panic speeds while your brain has to make courtroom-clean decisions. That tension sits at the center of my conversation with Eric Robinson, a former pastor turned FBI agent who spent 24 years in the Bureau and served on SWAT. We get real about what it means to approach a door knowing you might meet violence, and why true calm is not bravado, it is competence...

Send us Fan Mail He walked away from the pulpit because the stress would not let his body rest, then spent the next two decades staring straight at humanity’s darkest corners. I’m joined by Eric Robinson, newly retired after 24 years in the FBI, to talk about resilience that’s earned, not posted. Eric shares how carrying other people’s pain as a solo pastor led to daily headaches, and why choosing...

Send us Fan Mail If peer support is supposed to be a safe place, why do so many first responders avoid it because they’re afraid their story will end up in the station, the briefing room, or the chief’s office? Stephanie Conn get blunt about the real problem behind “peer support doesn’t work” and it’s usually not the idea, it’s trust, confidentiality, and what happens when one person treats privat...

Send us Fan Mail The job trains you to scan for danger, move fast, and stay ready, but nobody hands you a clean off-switch when you walk back through your front door. We sit down with Dr Stephanie Conn, a former dispatcher and police officer turned first responder psychologist, to get real about what actually helps police, fire, EMS, dispatch, and corrections stay steady over the long haul. We tal...

Send us Fan Mail One small action can change a whole community, and sometimes even rewrite what the next generation learns in school. We sit down with Brad and Kira Newberry to unpack the idea behind their book, The Saved Effect, and why a single rescue rarely ends when the ambulance doors close. Using the butterfly effect as a guide, we explore how “micro moments” of courage and care can ripple o...

Send us Fan Mail You can work a cardiac arrest, get pulses back, hand the patient off, and never learn what happened next. That missing chapter messes with how we measure success, how we carry trauma, and how we stay resilient over a long career in EMS and emergency medicine. We sit down with Brad Newberry, a captain paramedic with more than 40 years in fire and EMS and the founder of a major EMS...

Send us Fan Mail You can build the best peer support team on paper, fund the best wellness initiatives, and still miss the people who are hurting the most. That’s where this conversation with Dr. Stacey Raymond goes, and we don’t stay polite about it. We talk about why first responder mental health needs to start at the academy level, with a clear warning: the job will expose you to traumatic even...

Send us Fan Mail A call can end, the scene can clear, and your body can still be on the call months later. We sit down with clinical psychologist Dr. Stacy Raymond to talk about what actually works for first responder mental health when the job leaves you with nightmares, intrusive images, a short fuse, and sleep that never fully comes back. We also dig into why the “tough it out” culture quietly...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of first responders can talk anyone through a crisis, then go home and quietly self-destruct. That tension sits at the center of my conversation with Joe Smarro, a former cop known for crisis work who’s also honest about the parts of his life that didn’t look “resilient” at all: shame, compulsive numbing, relationship fallout, and the kind of hopelessness that puts a gun bel...

Send us Fan Mail A “mental health call” rarely looks like a calm conversation in a quiet office. It looks like uncertainty, pressure, split-second decisions, and a room full of risk factors that do not fit neatly into a checklist. I sit down with Joe Smarro, former Marine and former San Antonio Police Department officer who spent 11 years full-time on a mental health unit, to unpack what actually...

Send us Fan Mail Five years ago, I hit publish with a simple goal: make mental health easier to talk about and easier to access. Now, Resilience Development in Action is built specifically for first responder mental health, because police, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and dispatchers carry stress and trauma most people never see, then get told to just push through it. I’m sharing what’s kept th...

Send us Fan Mail One call can change the way you breathe, drive, sleep, and even trust your own judgment. I sit down with paramedic Emma Irwin to talk through a suicide scene that hit hard, the moment she cried on scene, and the quiet belief that too many first responders carry: “I should be able to handle this.” We name what that pressure does to police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics whe...