SOUTHERN INDIANA — There’s a brand new gym at the Dubois County Sheriff’s Office where employees can get their sweat on and take a break from a hard day at work.
Similar facilities are also available for workers at the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department as well at Baptist Health Floyd.
That’s because authorities in the area are focusing on taking care of the mental health of their workers.
The numbers are staggering. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s most recent statistics, it’s estimated about 30% of first responders develop depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Data on law enforcement shows between 125 and 300 police officers commit suicide each year.
In Southern Indiana, there’s help. Joni Stroud-Martin, a therapist at Personal Counseling Services Inc. in Clarksville, is making it her mission to educate and heal the helpers in the region.
She said she’s been researching Moral Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but it’s been difficult to find information that helps first responders.
“It only takes one click (to find information about military....) but to find stuff for first responders, specifically getting into law enforcement, dispatchers and corrections officers, I think corrections was the hardest” she said. “When you look up ‘Mental health and corrections officers,’ what you get is corrections officers being informed on how to manage the mental health of inmates.”
According to a study from the National Library of Medicine, the pandemic has made things increasingly difficult for public servants. In a survey of nearly 190 first responders who worked between June and August 2020, researchers noted an increase in PTSD symptom severity and alcohol use among the group interviewed.
“I’ve been able to go around to some different departments to talk about this, awareness and an initiation, if you want to talk, just talk, because the solutions are very individualized,” Stroud-Martin said. “There are a lot of options we can talk about.”
One of those departments is the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Nick Smith said the team there is very fortunate Stroud-Martin came in and was able to define what issues law enforcement and first responders have and how that affects their lives.
“With this approach Joni has come up with, we are so very happy someone has pointed some things out,” Smith said. “Hey, if we have a gym for your body, where is the gym for your brain? Where is the proactive approach to say, ‘Hey, you need to go talk to people?’” Smith said a job in law enforcement can rob workers of empathy since they see all the bad things in the world and when a worker goes home, their brains are pretty tired.
“All of the things our spouses and kids talk about are so important to them and we kind of zone out,” he said.
At the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department there’s a mandatory class for workers and a class offered for spouses, so they can see the symptoms of mental health problems and how to help. The department will also pay for counseling sessions for workers and spouses.
“When I walked in, within the first session the lightbulb came on,” Smith said. “....Now I understand it’s not just me, it’s all of us.”
Stroud-Martin focuses on two different concepts, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the idea of Moral Injury.
“A big piece about Moral Injury is that there’s damage to their conscience and that’s a big piece of it, how you might use your moral compass,” she said. “When they commit, witness or fail to prevent an act that violates their own moral code of conduct.”
Moral Injury involves shame and guilt whereas PTSD is more fear-based. Those dealing with PTSD symptoms may have flashbacks and hypervigilance.
“You have the loss of pure joy,” she said. “You might laugh at some point and feel like you have some happiness, that’s different than joy. Joy is a risky emotion, because it’s vulnerable.”
Dubois County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter said he’s trying to stress the importance of getting mental health help to all employees.
“One thing we are trying to do now is stress to younger officers, don’t wait, get help right away,” he said. “Because things we see are not normal and we don’t want to normalize what’s not normal.”
Kleinhelter has been with the department since 1994, starting as a jail officer and working his way up to sheriff.
“I think the biggest change has taken effect in the past couple of years and that’s just the respect,” he said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s respect toward law enforcement, I just think people don’t respect people any more as we did in earlier years.”
The counselor at the Dubois County Jail connected Stroud-Martin to the department and Kleinhelter said she’s been “a world of help.”
Right before the pandemic the department installed a new gym for workers, giving them the opportunity to take an hour off during a hard time and move their bodies.
Kleinhelter said he thinks that taking care of mental health will help people’s overall health and encourage workers to do things like visit the doctor regularly.
He also said it can help officers on the job, especially if they’re getting pushback from the community.
“I believe personally, if you come in and talk about things and you open up and you talk to your partners and whoever else, when you deal with that person that may not want you there and dislike the police, other stressors may not be as present,” he said. “So you can deal with that more calmly than if you were stressing with all the things bottled up inside of you.”
It’s not just law enforcement that’s dealt with mental health issues recently. The pandemic also affected first responders in the health care fields.
Baptist Health Floyd Vice President of Nursing and Chief Nursing Officer Kelly McMinoway said the pandemic has taken its toll on health care workers in everything from dealing with the unknown, being with patients as they pass away and keeping themselves safe.
“I think what has been hard is caring for them with the pandemic patients, walking side by side with the families,” she said.” The caregivers were the ones with the patients when they passed away, making the phones calls with the family and arranging the virtual visits.”
She said there was a lot of figuring out on the fly, trying to figure out the best way to meet patients.
“Then you add in the length of time that this pandemic has lasted...it has certainly worn into the stress level and resilience of the staff,” she said. “(However) I have to say time and time again, we hear just how thankful the staff are to have been able to work during the pandemic, to be that essential worker.”
Baptist Health Floyd has implemented respite rooms for workers, where they can get away during a shift to rejuvenate. The rooms have a massage chair, low lights, essential oils and offer hydration.
“We opened an on-site gym to be free of charge that allows them to get in activity or exercise,” McMinoway said. “We are really trying to focus on their mental health and the well-being perspective to help them through this.”
Ivy Tech’s massage school also recently came and offered full massages for workers, and hospital chaplains are also checking on and supporting staff.
“We know as health care providers we tend to take care of others and not take care of ourselves,” she said. “We tend to put ourselves last, to be able to provide the best care for others we need to take care of ourselves.”
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