The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | April 2023
Continued from previous page
Morris Plains Police Department Retired Chief Scott Thompson , 20 years of law enforcement service , currently Cop2Cop peer support counselor reflects on trauma and critical incident stress management
Being retired and working in a peer support role has allowed me to remain connected to my brothers and sisters in law enforcement . It also allows me to provide crisis response in the form of conducting defusing and debriefings . I was initially trained to conduct defusing and debriefings as part of a county police debriefing team formed in 1997 . Since that time , the number of requests for crisis response has increased exponentially . While officers do seem to respond to more dangerous and high stress calls now than back then , I think the increases in requests for crisis response is also largely attributed to the reduction in the negative stigma of critical incident stress combined with a better understanding of the broad range of events that can cause this stress . These crisis responses allow us to help the affected officers manage this stress , which helps prevent critical stress , being involved in crisis response allow us to help reduce the number of cops that eventually suffer from critical incident stress disorder . I find this work to be very fulfilling , as it allows me to continue to be my brother ’ s keeper even after retiring . To me it very simply boils down to this : if we don ’ t take care of our own , especially when holding a leadership position , no one will .”
Averaging two CISM responses a week or 100 per year at Cop2Cop we understand the service is not tactical debriefing , treatment or assessment , it is psychological first aid to educate , foster healing , and mitigate long term PTSD risks over a 30 year career of traumatic exposure . Thank you for enhancing your officer wellness by employing these interventions and for allowing us to serve you and your officers .
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