Communication and connection are a challenge for all of us in law enforcement relationships. There are some extra special challenges when you're on call all the time or you're in situations where you just can't talk due to being in a special assignment such as undercover work or maybe the part of a SWAT team.

Heather Williams, a law enforcement professional, turned police psychologist, and SWAT spouse talks about the unique challenges of special units, their impact on relationships and strategies to communicate and connect.

Premier First Responder Psychological Services

Premier1streponder.com

heather@premierfirstresponder.com.

“I just don't want to burden my spouse with what I experience on the job” is a way of protecting the people that you love. I always thought my husband was open only to find out later that this happened a few times within our relationship. Most of the time an officer's spouse and family sense that something is up. It bleeds over.

While protecting the family is noble, it is also a way that an officer can avoid talking about difficult things. Our relationships need to involve trust. Officers, trust that your spouse can handle what you are sharing, and as a spouse trust that an officer will navigate that line between sharing and traumatizing. This week, law enforcement couple Brett and Danielle Koss joined me to discuss developing a reciprocal relationship of trust and understanding.

CCS Behavioral Health and Recovery (ccswebsite.org)

We have all worked in a toxic work environment due to the workplace culture, co-workers, supervisors, or the work itself.   

Stephanie Kiesow is a former law enforcement officer, cop kid, and cop’s wife.  She saw how work impacted her parents, their mood, and in turn the family.  She started her career in law enforcement at 18 and in 2011, when her fiancé had a pending IA, lost him to death by suicide.  This kicked off what Stephanie calls her obsessive curiosity about suicide and how the workplace contributes to the permanent decision. 

Stephanie is currently working on her PhD in Organizational psychology.  Through her research and education, she found contributing workplace factors that impact mental health and cause death in a perceptual sense or literal sense and coined the term workicide.   

Stephanie’s goal is to help people mitigate a work-related decline in their mental health and increase their overall well-being so they can enjoy work and love life. She has written the book Workicide to help others do just that.   

This is a deep topic but you will want to hear her research and her solutions for our law enforcement culture.   

LinkedIn: Stephanie K.

Workicide: How to Overcome a Career-Related Decline in Mental Health and Reignite Your Passion for Work and Life.

Burnout — Code4Couples

Beyond the Badge — Code4Couples