Hey Chaplain: The Police Wellness Podcast

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we're talking about Crisis Intervention Teams and the work they do to free up police resources for other jobs.  Our guest today is a CIT officer and instructor I met at a training I went to this last year.  His name is JD Pettey and he's a thirty year officer with about a decade specifically working with co-responders (the community behavioral hea...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail In the first part of our conversation with Travis Yates, we talked about cowardly leadership.  If you didn't listen to that episode, go back and listen to it right now, it's episode 131.  This is the second part of that conversation where we veered off from the cowardly leadership conversation to the more specific conversation of how leadership affects...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Following the law should be straightforward and black and white.  Following department policy should be the same way.  But navigating the murky waters of how to lead and inspire people to do their best work in a competitive and demoralizing environment… well, that's going to take some courage.  Our guest today is Travis Yates, who rose up through the police...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail A special guest host interviews Chaplain Altic to recap the year!  Police Major Joe Grasela joins Jared to give us a recap of their favorite moments from the 2025 Hey Chaplain episodes.  Listen in to find out what were the most noteworthy episodes of the year; also included are the top ten listener countries and cities. And don't miss a sneak peek of what&ap...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail This is our Christmas Bonus Episode for 2025! Today's guest is police chaplain Mark Femmel from St Louis. We're talking about the goodness of police officers, ride alongs, Christmas services at church, and Mark has a special Christmas message for you. Music is by Audionautix and by Kevin MacLeod Hey Chaplain Bonus Episode 47 Tags :  Christmas, Chaplains...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail When we talk about traumatic experiences, we usually go straight to the shootings and the car accidents, the grisly murders and crimes against children.  What often gets left out of that list is getting the threatening lawyer letter that says you're getting sued and whole life is about to be destroyed.  Today's guest is police chaplain Mark Clements who...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail It's mailbag time! Use the link above to leave a comment or a question and we might use it on a future show! Music is by Chris Haugen Hey Chaplain Update Episode 4Q 2025 Tags : Chaplaincy, Chaplains, Email, Law Enforcement, Mail, Podcasting, Radio, Chicago, Kansas City, Illinois, Kansas Support the show Thanks for Listening!  And, as always, pray for peace i...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we are talking about Critical Incident Debriefs.  I had an officer walk into a debrief one time, take one look at the chairs, and say, "this is a circle meeting?!  I hate circle meetings!"  Well, typically a modern, well-run debrief will prove its value by the end of the meeting, even reaching most of the skeptics… as long as they go to the meetin...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we return to our conversation with Sheriff Sonny Byerley and his wife Mikaela.  This is part two, so you if you haven't heard part one, you definitely need to go back and catch Episode 127 and hear some of the wild stories of Sonny's career: getting shot and stabbed, going through a dramatic officer involved shooting and witnessing the hatred and...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we're talking to Sheriff Sonny Byerley and his wife Mikaela.  I met Sonny and Mikaela because they have begun traveling to police wellness conferences to share their experiences about PTSD.  Sonny is a cop's cop: strong, independent, and self-reliant, but he's also a cop who has survived being shot and stabbed on multiple occasions and has en...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail In the summer of 2025, one of my patrol officers, Hunter Simoncic, was struck by a car and killed in the line of duty. As part of the grieving process, we are sharing our experiences with you that you might be better prepared for the impossible tasks that immediately follow a line of duty death. One of the most difficult is that of family liaison officer.  A fami...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail In the summer of 2025 my hometown of Kansas City, Kansas, lost two officers murdered in the line of duty: Deputy Elijah Ming and Officer Hunter Simoncic.  Because they were killed just 30 days apart, we had two large, complex, line of duty death funerals at the local major league soccer stadium, one funeral just a few weeks after the other.  We are still grieving...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail It's that time of year again to talk about those spooky stories and things that go bump in the night.  This time we're looking at San Francisco and talking to friend of the show, JIm Dudley.  Jim has been on the show multiple times and just to remind you he's a retired deputy chief from the San Francisco PD with over 30 years experience, he teaches...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail So a few years back I was at a police department promotion ceremony and began chatting with a guest who was an ATF civilian analyst.  Every gun story he told was fascinating.  Every insight he had on firearms was spot on.  He was good humored and friendly, so I asked him right there, would you ever consider coming on the Hey Chaplain podcast?  We can talk guns, w...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Medina Baumgart, Psy. D., ABPP is back to answer more questions from cops.  She and I put our heads together to make a list of common issues that cops have and I've compiled those concerns and questions (and a few surprise questions the doc hasn't seen yet) and we're going to have her give us her answers and she and I will banter back and forth abo...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail On today's episode we're talking doing something a bit different, something new to Hey Chaplain.  I found a cop psychologist who is married to a retired police officer and her name is Medina Baumgart, Psy. D., ABPP.  We put our heads together to make a list of common issues that cops have and I've compiled those concerns and questions (and a few su...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail On today's episode we're talking to Kevin Hardy about artificial intelligence, specifically in how and where it will fit in between the police officer and the chaplain… and can it replace a chaplain, or other helpers, entirely?  And I promise that both Kevin and I are actual flesh and blood humans.  Really. Kevin's website:  https://mwcn.online/  ...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail In the early days of this podcast, I began by bringing in patrol officers and asking them a series of about 25 questions, covering all aspects of their patrol experience.  From that initial batch of interviews I would pick a topic, stitch together the responses of several officers, and create compilation bonus episodes I called "Firsthand Accounts."  It...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail On today's episode we're talking to Gregg Lanzen, he's a police and fire chaplain from Indiana who was a firefighter, a medic, church pastor, and a counselor with a doctorate in Psychology.  Gregg has all kinds of good things to tell you about building resiliency and some great tips for first responder families. Music is by the Mini Vandals, by Chr...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail I'm frequently asked about the topic of grief, so here are a few thoughts that frequently come up in those conversations, with special attention to the insights we get from Christianity.  Music is by the Westerlies Hey Chaplain Podcast Bonus Episode 44 Tags : Grief, Bible, Death, Emotion, Fear, Funerals, Loss, Love, God, Health, Hope, Pain, Psychology, Remem...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we're talking about Field Training Officers and the FTO programs that train police officers once they are on the street.  Our guest today is Steve Kellams from the Blue Canary podcast.  Steve has taught hundreds of police departments in regard to field training issues and how to best run an FTO program and he is a past president of the National Associa...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail It's mailbag time! Use the link above to leave a comment or a question and we might use it on a future show! Music is by LesFM Hey Chaplain Update Episode 3Q 2025 Tags : Chaplaincy, Chaplains, ICPC, Law Enforcement, Limited Series, Mail, Microphones, Mini-Series, Podcasting, Radio,  Reporting, Training, Kansas City, Little Rock, Arkansas, Kansas Support the...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Today we're talking to Rick James… no, not that Rick James.  Richard James is a chaplain with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from the Vancouver, British Columbia area.  He is a former Canadian police officer and has been working in church ministry for several years.  He was also a police chaplain in New York State for some time.  Rick journeyed across Nor...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail Welcome to the Daily ICPC; My name is Jared Altic, and I'm a chaplain with the police department.  This is a limited podcast series from Hey Chaplain, which follows police chaplains Jared Altic and Ward Jenkins to Little Rock, Arkansas to attend the annual training seminar of the ICPC, the international conference of police chaplains.  This series will provi...

Text the Show or Leave a Voicemail On this episode we're talking to Dr. Olivia Johnson from Blue Wall Institute.  She is a researcher and subject expert on police wellness and specifically on police suicide and she is the jagged little pill stuck in the throat of the huge law enforcement machine that is funneling huge amounts of money at suicide prevention.  Today she's going to talk abo...