168: Off-Duty Challenges, Work/Home Balance, Hypervigilance, Boundaries and Destress for Police and First Responders

Blue Grit Radio: Better Cops, Police Leaders, Applicants, and Beyond (Mindset, Wellness, Team, and Development)

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In this panel episode, we hit a crucial number of topics that I'm frequently getting questions and feedback about. Work and home life balances and stress management are hard for average working folks.. but inject in a first-responder, police, fire, EMS, etc career? Hypervigilance, Compassion Fatigue, Cynicism.. oh my!
I'm joined by experts from different angles: Deana Kahle, (new face), Dr. Medina Baumgart (returning guest) and Cpl. Mark Bouchard, RCMP (returning 4th? appearance!)
With the range of perspective, we cover the multitude of challenges for off-duty life, stress reduction, efforts in work/life balance, communication, boundaries and more! This is one to share out to your team, first responders, spouses and family for sure!
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Dr. Medina Baumgart is a licensed psychologist in California and a board-certified specialist in Police and Public Safety Psychology. She works full-time as an embedded psychologist within a large metropolitan law enforcement agency where she provides counseling, critical incident debriefings, crisis response, critical incident rollouts, training, consultation.

Outside of her full-time work, Dr. Baumgart enjoys teaching and providing consultation to other law enforcement agencies on a range of topics . She is also married to a now-retired police officer and knows firsthand some of the challenges that officers and spouses experience throughout a law enforcement career and into retirement.

Website - www.drbaumgart.com

Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbaumgart/

Instagram - @dr_baumgart
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Deana Kahle is a California licensed Marriage & Family Therapist. As a first responder to first responders for over 13 years, she provides critical incident stress management services to local, state, and federal public safety agencies across the United States.

Her professional focus is on the treatment of post-traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout. In addition to training and keynotes on wellness and resilience, she provides consultation and annual wellness checks. Deana can be reached through her website copshrink.com or @copshrink on Instagram.
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Mark Bouchard works as a police officer with a full-time position in the RCMP’s National Tactical Medicine Program. Mark is in his 18 year of policing, which has consisted largely of patrol, SWAT (Emergency Response) and peer support work.

Outside of work, Mark has completed a Master’s Degree in Leadership, with a focus on police culture and police officer mental health. He combined his experiences and his research into a book called Settin

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