Page 31 - FOP August 2019 Magazine

“They want it because they understand the stressors are be- ing piled on and they’re not going to go away,” Ferreira contin- ues. “They want to know how they can cope with it, what they can do to lessen them so they can function at a higher level.”
Lodge 7 members receive detailed education and training about how stress results from any outside force, threat or event that causes bodily or mental tension. Beat cops, detectives, tac team members and pretty much every officer on the street knows too well how stress makes the heart beat faster, muscles tense, breathing shallow and sweat drip.
When stress starts to pour out, how do you turn off the faucet? And whether it’s through adult coloring or finding ways to inject a few minutes of laughter into the day, participants walk away from the two days with a pretty good plan for how to better deal with the mounting stress.
“You learn what triggers your stress and how you want to leave work and not bring it home,” explains Lester White, an of- ficer in 009 who has been on for 29 years and has been coming to the seminar almost every year since it began 20 years ago. “A lot of officers don’t really know about this, but I think it’s starting to snowball. And it’s helping.”
More ways to calm down
The respite inherent in the Stress Management Seminar has attracted Officer Florence Ramos. She just moved from 016 to a beat car in 017, looking for a fresh start. Never mind the tri- als of body cameras and social media. Ramos, who has been on for 21 years, had to deal with three deaths in her family during the previous two months. She needed something to “feel better about everything.”
For some officers, that something might be meeting in the parking lot and start drinking. It’s not hard to fall into that cul- ture to relieve the stress and tension.
Andre Bullock, an officer who is a drug and alcohol counselor assigned to EAP, fell into that culture. He is a recovering alcohol- ic who addressed the seminar and warned participants about the Superman and kryptonite syndrome that explains how re- peated exposure to stress can lead to drug and alcohol addic- tion.
That’s one reason officers are here. Another is the hourlong appeal Dr. Rob Sobo, director of EAP’s Professional Counseling Division, makes at the beginning of day two about changing the culture by officers modeling healthy behavior. He points at one of the other major issues affecting mental health and wellness in the Department: suicide awareness and prevention.
“Look, there’s nothing normal about what you experience, so you have to find a place to work through it and not bring it home,” Dr. Sobo implores to officers sitting before him at tables in a U-shaped formation. “So you need to find more ways to calm down. Rage and anxiety can force you to come here, rather than the most common way to manage it: with drugs and alco- hol.”
It’s not a difficult decision to come to the Stress Management Seminar. Besides being two days away from the job and two days off the street of not having to respond to calls filled with that nothing normal, it’s an opportunity to relax and rejuvenate. But more and more officers are realizing they need more than R&R, and that’s why they attend.
“I had some life changes go on over the past two years,” sub- mits Paterno, who’s been on for 19 years and has the job in 007 where everything seems to roll downhill to: command secretary. “I was thinking I could use some tools to de-stress. I was think- ing what better place to come than stress management.”
The two days feature some simple but productive objectives:
• Create a safe and relaxing space to share.
• Define and understand the signs of stress.
• Practice different techniques to better cope.
• Most importantly – have fun.
“If you take care of officers early in their careers, or as the
traumatic events happen, you’re going to have a better officer,” Ferreira forecasts. “And they’re going to react better to the com- munity. So they’re going to be in a better place, and I think peo- ple are starting to see that value.”
Best-kept secret
Jackie Glass, the community relations and legislative affairs manager for Hartgrove, has been coordinating the CPD Stress Management Seminar since it began. He explains how the pro- gram has evolved to give officers the techniques to keep them- selves healthy during times of crisis and just in life.
He has seen officers walk away from every session with vari- ous tools and mechanisms to debrief and find calm in the midst of the job. He has heard about how officers waiting to appear in court have been able to stop their minds from racing by using some of these techniques.
“It’s not just what to do to debrief but to save yourself from al- coholism, getting divorced and all those little pieces that might be beneficial with these services,” Glass comments. “And it’s not just how to debrief themselves. They can help family members and spread the same wellness throughout the community. It’s the best-kept, two-day secret in any department in the U.S.”
The CPD Stress Management Seminar includes sessions to learn yoga as one of the best techniques to reduce stress.
The seminar has grown to include a series of unique speak- ers, including a chiropractor who advocates the power of laugh- ter in managing stress. On day two, massage therapist Saleena Amaro from Bridgewater Chiro comes in to give every attendee a 15-minute chair massage as another boost to de-stressing. And there is a yoga session each day to offer some stretching and opportunities to exhale stress on the spot.
One of the yoga instructors is Officer Rick Rice, who has been on for 20 years and currently runs instructional design at the academy. Yoga has become part of the wellness lesson recruits can get at the academy, and Rice comes to the seminar to fur- ther boost that wellness.
“CPD’s old wellness program used to be shut up and drink it away,” Rice quips. “But wellness is now a big deal with police officers across the board.”
The seminars being fully booked until the end of 2019 and more being scheduled indicate that the Department has recog- nized how much of an issue managing stress has become. Fer- reira reports that officers have asked him if the Department is backing that up.
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