Page 40 - December 2019 FOP Magazine

Mental Health Spotlight
A personalized treatment plan for police officers
An officer you can talk to
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Here’s a guy police officers feeling the effects of stress, anxi- ety, depression or substance abuse can talk to.
A guy? Here’s a brother officers can talk to and confide in.
Talk to retired officer Mark Honzel, a counselor for the Rosecrance Florian Program for Uniformed Service Personnel who has been there. When
Honzel counsels a fellow police officer, he
can relate how he had to do CPR on a dying child. He knows about the night- mares and the drinking to drown them out so he could get to sleep. He is deal- ing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. He is four years sober.
“I just feel, with what police officers
face today, you got to talk to somebody,
be it professionally, a peer or somebody
who has been through the same kind of
thing you have been,” reasons Honzel, who did
21 years with the Rockford Police Department before
retiring in 2014. “When I share my background with my clients and that I have been through treatment myself, you just see the resistance fade away. They know I’m not going to judge them.”
After retiring from the job, Honzel initially contemplated be- coming a teacher before pursuing a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. He did his internship at Rosecrance and found that he wanted to dedicate himself to the population in the Florian program.
Therapy with Honzel never begins with having to explain what it’s like to stop a car, respond to a shooting or take on an in-progress call. He borrows from life on the job to try and get police officers to understand the value of having somebody to talk to about the stress, anxiety and depression from the job.
“The way I explain it, if we’re going on a hot call or working a homicide, we don’t work it alone,” Honzel details. “You have detectives, evidence technicians and investigators on the scene, and we have no problem asking for backup. You get help from people who have specialized training. We are able to provide somebody who has seen the blood spattered at a school and has additional training in mental healthcare.”
Honzel asserts that Chicago Police Officers have a consum- mate group of professionals to talk to at the Department’s Em- ployee Assistance Program (EAP). And for those who have made it through treatment, “No Cop Outs” – an AA for police officers – is available six days per week as a group to talk with.
Answering the big question
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Sitting in the café, one of the many comforting amenities at the Rosecrance Harrison Campus in Rockford where first responders come for unique drug and alcohol addiction and
mental health treatment, Dan DeGryse savors one of the most tantalizing questions continually con-
fronting mental healthcare: What the hell is treatment?
DeGryse, a Chicago firefighter who recently retired after 28 years on and who coordinated CFD Local 2’s em- ployee assistance program for 14 years, is the director of the Rose- crance Florian Program for Uni- formed Service Personnel. Florian’s approach to treatment for substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression has be-
come a full menu of methods.
“It’s not cookie-cutter. It’s not one size fits
all,” DeGryse begins. “We talk about police officers, firefighters, military personnel, special ops, narcotics, SWAT, patrolmen: How can you expect for them to learn about recov- ery the same way? Hence the Florian program.”
From counselors who come from the police beat and the fire- house, innovative forms of therapy including art and equine-as- sisted, and faith-based advocacy, the Florian program presents pathways to recovery that individualizes treatment for each client. It is a first-responders-only program that addresses sub- stance abuse and mental health issues while offering coping skills and building resiliency.
“When you build a 110-foot high-rise, what is the base?” De- Gryse continues. “The basis of what we have to build is as much about the people who facilitate or implement the learning pro- cess as it is about the treatment. It’s the connection between the clinicians and the clients.”
Considering that clients spend 25 to 35 days in treatment, they need to find ways to expedite the connection to get to the benefits of treatment that make a difference in recovery. Does a facility have the resources to get to the learning and therapy needed?
That seems to make clinicians, therapists and counselors with an affinity toward the first responder and protector per- spective more valuable to police officers getting into recovery. And for police officers, who understandably do not embrace treatment readily, having personnel who know them pretty well
40 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2019
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