ple, has been operating under its same funding for the past 18
years. Funding could be used to hire more resources, specifical-
ly officers from PBA Locals or officers who work in corrections.
Perhaps that will help a gap Dr. Stef found in the current state
of peer assistance, clinical services and treatment. At the PBA
convention in the Bahamas in September, he met a member
who had been on for 30-plus years. The member had never
heard of Dr. Stef, clinical services, peer assistance and the like.
It’s a situation with a specific relief that will begin with run-
ning a peer assistance training at the PBA Mini Convention
in March, the grandest scale ever for such a training. Suicide
awareness and prevention will be a primary topic toward the
goal of the more members are trained, the more members are
aware of the help.
Where it goes from there, well, Dr. Stef has a directive.
“The delegates and the presidents of the Locals should be dis-
seminating the information at their meetings,” he recommends.
“It should be on every agenda of every meeting, like good and
welfare.”
There is a powerful influence leading officers down the path
to the dark place. Headlines. In newspapers, online news sites,
social media and on the television crawl, Dr. Stef suggests the
negative news has an impact on the subconscious.
“They repress it, and because they are already stressed, it
manifests,” he details. “Then something goes wrong and they
are likely to do something foolish.”
Beyond the syndrome of going from superheroes to the vil-
lains of society, the day-to-day stressors of the job continue to
mount. There is the increased intensity of facing disciplinary
action and even legal action, bosses who, shall we say, are not
so compassionate and the stigma of admitting stress or anxiety
that can lead to a fit-for-duty evaluation. And there is a reluc-
tance to confide in colleagues because of that chance that it can
lead to gossip.
Now, add in the prospect of having to work 30 years to maxi-
mize the pension – 30 years inside an institution in corrections
– and see how that fills the bucket. And what about the possibil-
ity of a violent incident forcing officers to go from zero to 60 in
split seconds?
“You can’t live like that,” Sprich implores. “You can take it and
shrug it off only so much before it starts affecting your life.”
At home – when you get the chance to go home – sometimes
it’s not any easier. Time away from the family is putting so much
strain on marriages that both Burkert and Castellano are work-
ing on resources for marriage and family counseling, including
support groups for cops’ wives. And quickly rising up the list
of bucket-fillers behind relationship issues are financial issues.
“It’s not just the stigma now that keeps people from getting
help,” confirms Castellano, who is also a law enforcement wife
with her husband Mark on the job as a Morris County Prosecu-
tor’s Office Local 327 member. “There is a growing disconnect
between an officer recognizing that marital or financial issues
and the work pressure is deteriorating his or her mental health.
They can find themselves pretty quickly in dire straits and iso-
lated by the shame that is associated with these kinds of chal-
lenges.”
Whether it’s a call for help, a cry for help or matter of help-
me-help-you, the crux of this matter comes down to where the
help is coming from and how it can help. Anybody who checks
at least one box from the list on page 33 would probably benefit
by making a call or talking to a trained clinician.
Checking the Triggers
Dr. Michael Bizzarro of the NJ State PBA’s clinical
services team provides a list of triggers that can
lead officers to consider harming themselves:
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Depression
Anxiety
Post-traumatic stress
Sleep deprivation
Alcohol and drug use
Financial unmanageability
Work-performance issues
Marital issues
Lack of communication
Emotional numbing
Isolation
Anger
Irritability
Risk-taking
Gambling
Infidelity
Sexual dysfunction
“By going to therapy and finding out about yourself, you can
work through your problems and be better instead of bitter,”
Burkert advises.
OK, but what happens in therapy?
“You work on your well-being to not allow the triggers to cre-
ate the substance abuse,” Burkert continues. “Working through
those triggers by talking them out with somebody takes your
mind off the altering of moods and fills those gaps with positive
reinforcement that will build self-esteem, make you feel better
about yourself and make your family members feel better about
being around you.”
Burkert also advocates for making training by departments
and agencies on the triggers, critical incident stress manage-
ment, suicide awareness and substance abuse and protections
for officers under the Americans with Disabilities Act annual
and mandatory. Make it like the checkup you should be getting
at least once a year for your physical health.
“Get debriefed about something to see if you are coping with
it OK,” Sprich recommends. “If you are not coping OK, you
might need to talk to somebody more frequently. It’s like a tune-
u p on a car. Once a month, go speak to somebody for an hour.”
Castellano proposes increasing access to face-to-face help.
The PBA Peer Liaison Committee continues to work to find
chaplains throughout the state to be on call for members, and
faith-based counselors could become a great support to thera-
pists and peer counselors.
She also suggests training first-line supervisors, the ones who
see officers at roll calls, to identify signs of members needing
help to get ahead of the problem before it gets out of control.
Research suggests getting ahead of the problems is the best way
to divert the path to darkness.
“You can help a population if you build the strength instead
of addressing the weakness,” Castellano specifies. “If you build
the people up to have those good resilience skills, you end up
with a stronger workforce.”
Resiliency studies, not to mention the connection between
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■ JANUARY 2018 33