Unlock the hidden struggles and triumphs within the lives of our everyday heroes. Joining me again for part 2 of the interview is Kathryn Branca, a long-time advocate in the field of first responder mental health, who will help us navigate the complex psychological landscape these courageous individuals face. We delve into the often overlooked issues that lead first responders to seek therapy; it's not just the trauma that weighs heavy on their shoulders but the totality of their experiences, including personal relationships, substance misuse, financial strains, and the elusive quest for balance between duty and home.
In our conversational journey, we dissect the evolving practices of trauma-informed policing and the innovative co-response models that are reshaping mental health crisis intervention. Kathryn elaborates on the benefits of empathy-infused questions and the transformational impact of Crisis Intervention Team training on the mental fortitude of first responders. We also examine the grounding effects of yoga and other stress reduction techniques, while candidly discussing the limitations and ongoing need for robust support systems to safeguard against burnout and compassion fatigue.
As we wrap up, the spotlight turns to the proactive steps being taken to arm first responders with an arsenal of mental health tools, including meditation and peer support groups designed by their peers. We also parse the gender dynamics at play within these critical professions and articulate simple yet powerful dietary modifications that can elevate the well-being of those who stand guard over our communities.Kathryn's profound insights are an invitation to appreciate and bolster the psychological support network for these unsung heroes. This episode is packed with invaluable wisdom for anyone interested in the wellness of those who protect and serve.
Unlock the hidden struggles and triumphs within the lives of our everyday heroes. Joining me again for part 2 of the interview is Kathryn Branca, a long-time advocate in the field of first responder mental health, who will help us navigate the complex psychological landscape these courageous individuals face. We delve into the often overlooked issues that lead first responders to seek therapy; it's not just the trauma that weighs heavy on their shoulders but the totality of their experiences, including personal relationships, substance misuse, financial strains, and the elusive quest for balance between duty and home.
In our conversational journey, we dissect the evolving practices of trauma-informed policing and the innovative co-response models that are reshaping mental health crisis intervention. Kathryn elaborates on the benefits of empathy-infused questions and the transformational impact of Crisis Intervention Team training on the mental fortitude of first responders. We also examine the grounding effects of yoga and other stress reduction techniques, while candidly discussing the limitations and ongoing need for robust support systems to safeguard against burnout and compassion fatigue.
As we wrap up, the spotlight turns to the proactive steps being taken to arm first responders with an arsenal of mental health tools, including meditation and peer support groups designed by their peers. We also parse the gender dynamics at play within these critical professions and articulate simple yet powerful dietary modifications that can elevate the well-being of those who stand guard over our communities.Kathryn's profound insights are an invitation to appreciate and bolster the psychological support network for these unsung heroes. This episode is packed with invaluable wisdom for anyone interested in the wellness of those who protect and serve.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:
C'est toujours la bienvenue. It's always welcome. I appreciate the intro and welcome to episode 146. This is going to be part two of the interview with Catherine Branca. Catherine Branca is a licensed alcohol and drug counselor experienced with mental health substance abuse, worked with first responders and has been doing trainings for CIT officers since 2019. Just giving you a quick review of her bio. If you want to hear the first part of the interview, go to the episode last week. But here is the second part and I'm sure you're excited about it.
Speaker 2:
Getfreeai yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again because getfreeai is just a great service. Imagine being able to pay attention to your clients all the time instead of writing notes and making sure that the note's going to sound good and how are you going to write that note and things like that. Getfreeai liberates you from making sure that you're writing what the client is saying, because it is keeping track of what you're saying and will create, after the end of every session, a progress note. But it goes above and beyond that. Not only does it create a progress note, it also gives you suggestions for goals, gives you even a mental status If you've asked questions around that as well as being able to write a letter for your client to know what you talked about. So that's the great great thing. It saves me time, it saves me a lot of aggravation and it just speeds up the progress note process. So well, and for $99 a month. I know that that's nothing. That's worth my time, that's worth my money, you know.
Speaker 2:
The best part of it too is that if you want to go and put in the code Steve50 when you get the service, the checkout code is Steve50, you get $50 off your first month and if you get a whole year, you save a whole 10% for the whole year. So again, steve50 at checkout for GetFreeai will get you $50 off for the first month and, like I said, get a full year, get 10.ai We'll give you $50 off for the first month and, like I said, get a full year, get 10% off. Get free from writing notes, get free from always scribbling while you're talking to a client and just paying attention to your clients. So they went out, you went out. Everybody wins and I think that this is the greatest thing. And if you're up to a point where you got to change a treatment plan. Well, the goals are generated for you. So getfreeai code Steve50 to save $50 on your first month. And I, you know I just said I'm going to hurt my finger, so therefore you probably should section me right.
Speaker 3:
Get your ass out of here.
Speaker 2:
Or 1030 or whatever it's called in different states. I know this is just not a Massachusetts thing, but no, you're right. Yeah, Get your ass out of here. That crisis condition, whatever the case may be, might be trigger happy, so to speak, and put them in the hospital as quickly as they possibly can because of their past. So the other cultural competency is to know where a person's at not only the client that you're facing or the person in the community, but also where the person's at, because I've had that experience too in my work.
Speaker 3:
Oh yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense too right, like we as clinicians are trained in things. Not all of us have training in suicide prevention specifically, but we have a lot of mental health you know background and training obviously. So that's not what police officers and firefighters and EMS you know you have training in. So like, of course, it makes sense, where they may be a little bit more quick, to section somebody or to, you know, commit somebody against their will to go into treatment, like because that's that is their only tool. So I think it makes a lot of sense and also kind of part of the whole, like mental health professional can play a role in advocating for better like treatment and services. Like we can play a role in advocating for better training and support around this kind of stuff too for people who are dealing with suicide and all kinds of other mental health issues.
Speaker 2:
So wait, you're telling me that it's not just about trauma.
Speaker 3:
Yep, I know Spoiler alert right Spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:
One of the things that I think that we also bonded really well on is that is that I'm not saying there's no trauma. We're not denying that, but there's been a ton of research done on that. But what about getting home, getting off work, so to speak, being a family member, being an equal partner to your partner when you were a person of authority, when you were working as a police officer or a firefighter or EMT or paramedic, because you're an authority in some ways when you're there.
Speaker 3:
I think that there's a lot of that stuff that we kind of discovered through our research yeah, and we have talked offline about this, but a lot of people don't come into therapy because of quote-unquote trauma. They come into therapy because, as a first responder, because their relationship is going to, or they're drinking too much or they are gambling too much, or they can't pay their bills. Or they're drinking too much, or they are gambling too much, or they can't pay their bills, or they're getting divorced. And then maybe, once you address those kind of initial reasons for coming in, we get deeper into things and their experiences on the job. But a lot of times it's not necessarily the job-related things that are going on that are bringing somebody into treatment as a first responder.
Speaker 2:
Well, let's talk a little bit about that research, dad, since you're bringing that up. Sometimes it is about work, because administration of betrayal and colleague conflict comes up often, and that's not trauma, that's just interpersonal relationships.
Speaker 3:
Yep.
Speaker 2:
And I think that that's where we, when we talk about cultural competency, you know, like if you're angry at your chief for X, y, z reason, or your lieutenant or what have you, it doesn't really matter. But to me it's some of the stuff that I talk about more often than not in my therapy sessions.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah. So do you want to talk a little bit about the research that we, the study that we did, or?
Speaker 2:
I mean I. I mean we can go wherever you want. You're the guest, essentially, but I think that would be a good place to go right now. But it's up to you, okay.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, no, I mean your podcast. So I respect your authority.
Speaker 2:
No one wants to hear me anymore. They've heard me for like almost three years now. They want to hear other people.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I guess. Well, they're stuck with me, so, at least today. So, yeah, I think me and you also connected over the fact that, like, we enjoy doing research and we have this whole like working with first responders as part of our current work. So we wanted to do a study around understanding what first responders are going through, both on the job, but then also other things that are kind of going on in their life that's impacting their ability to do their job. So all of that with the intention of tailoring resources to be better suited to them, reducing stigma and then also just creating awareness of, like, the need for this stuff, like we talked about before. Yeah, so we did a survey, sent it out.
Speaker 3:
61 people, 61 first responders responded to the survey. I think the biggest thing that we saw was, I mean, 70% indicated they are feeling burnt out. Almost half of them had been working in the field for more than 20 years, which was super interesting. And then when you talked about the administrative betrayal piece, when we were talking about what's the toughest part of being a first responder, dealing with administration was the highest ranked answer. So, yeah, I think that interpersonal piece within the job is really impactful, and administrative betrayal and dealing with administration can have all kinds of different issues within it, right. Administration can have all kinds of different issues within it, right. So we're talking about like losing faith that they can count on their leadership for support, um, leadership being unapproachable if they're say they're home after getting hurt on the job and they don't hear from anybody for three weeks, like feeling isolated, um all kinds of other things. So, yeah, just as kind of an introduction to the survey we've been referencing a couple of times.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and if anyone's interested in doing the follow-up survey as well as seeing the research, more than happy to offer that, and I'll leave my Catherine in my email in the show notes.
Speaker 2:
But I think it was important for me to bring up the administration betrayal because to me it was fascinating that even in the comments that came up more often than not, and I think that what we, what what me and Catherine also realized is that there needed to be a more in-depth survey in regards to specific questions, and that was one of them and, um, you know, I, as we collect our responses, it's been interesting from my perspective that it's a lot of what. What's funny about the responses is that it's not like a general administration betrayal, but it's also kind of like being told one thing and then speaking on the other half because of finances and all that and then not following up on it. That's been the mostly what's been reported and I think that that's hard for us as therapists to say well, go talk to your boss. Uh, because it's not we're, this is not corporate, this is, uh, what do we call it? Paramilitary bullshit. I mean, uh, systems and um, I think that plays a huge factor too and it's a paramilitary kind of like hierarchy.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah. And you brought up the story about the chief who, like, was checking on their person who was in therapy with you. Yeah, imagine if they had just been checking to see how they were doing, like, instead of it being a negative thing, right, like. Or even if they were just checking in with the person who was in therapy, like how's it going, how are you doing, right, like that's such a different thing than like what's up with this person, like you know what the hell is wrong with them. It's like a completely different conversation.
Speaker 2:
Right, and it goes back to even being trauma informed. I'm sick and tired. I think people my audience might be sick and tired of hearing me talk about this, but trauma informed is not knowing about trauma. Trauma informed is a little more complex than that and you know part of. Not only do we do surveys, you know, maybe you can speak a little more, but you also do trainings on that for CIT models.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah. So when I think about being trauma-informed, I consider it a universal precaution, like putting on PPE or putting on gloves when you're going to a medical call. It's just something that you do to prepare to interact with somebody who is in crisis or who is going through something. And this isn't like. This applies in all kinds of situations, right, not necessarily just like working with the public if you're a first responder, but it also is in looking out for your fellow first responder too. It's basically changing your mindset. Instead of asking somebody what's wrong with you, so what's happened to you, right? We're not looking at somebody as having a deficit in their skill, like I'm sorry in their will. We're not saying, like, what's wrong with you, that you can't handle your life. We're saying, wow, something really must have happened where you just don't have the skills to cope with it, and like, what can I do to help you? It's just having a completely different shift around that. But, yeah, so, as far as the trainings, so when I was working as a co-response clinician, but then also the suicide prevention program that I ran I did a lot of trainings for CIT, which is I know you've talked about this on your podcast before, but it's crisis intervention teams for police officers.
Speaker 3:
So they have a 40 hour week long training where they go and get all kinds of information about mental health and substance use and it's becoming a CIT officer would be a way to better serve the public because a lot of the time the police fire EMS they're dealing with mental health calls all the time. So if you have a CIT officer going to a mental health call they may be more prepared than somebody who hasn't been through this 40-hour training. So different topics within that CIT 40 hour week long training include trauma. I do trainings on trauma, informed policing, stress resiliency and suicide prevention.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I, you know I've, you know I've done some CIT trainings on mental health, psychotropic medication as well as substance use.
Speaker 2:
But I think that you know one of the things is that where and I don't know where you stand but I'm going to tell you my point of view I'm not opposed to the co-response model. In fact I love the co-response model. Except the co-response model doesn't get the finances. So you can't have a clinician there 24 seven and telling someone who's having a mental health crisis at two o'clock in the morning. Can you wait till 8am when our crisis clinician shows up and then have that crisis? It's just not possible. So having a model that has both and I can't pronounce THs really well, so now you can tell I think that it's so important to be able to notice that and be able to have both of those services, and that's why I'm a big fan of the co-response model as much as the CIT. I used to be a person that says you guys sit on one side or the other. I don't believe that anymore. I believe that both have value and I don't know what your thoughts are.
Speaker 3:
But oh yeah, I completely agree. They definitely both have value, I think. Being a co-response clinician of course you know I personally have 10 years of experience that's just going to give me more tools and skills to handle, to handle different things when working as a co-response clinician. But, like you said, I'm not going to be there at 2am when somebody wants to kill themselves. So having an officer and this applies to all first responders, but we're just talking about CIT right now but having an officer who is or feels more prepared to handle that may and hopefully creates a better outcome both for the public, but then also, like we talk about burning out, feeling burnt out and like compassion, fatigue and all kinds of things that first responders are struggling with. That we saw in our survey, maybe giving them these tools will help.
Speaker 3:
I, I don't know just a thought to avoid that burnout and compassion, fatigue and other things a little bit more. Just because I think about it as like a toolbox, like how many things do they have at their disposal to handle different calls and different situations? I think the better.
Speaker 2:
And I think it's also also fascinating thing about our research and talking about the co-response cit model stuff um, having first responders tell me that they want to learn how to do yoga or they already do yoga. I think when I started doing this stuff in 2006, if you told me that that would be the response in 2024. So you're full of shit. But you know we have seen a shift in the culture, I think, in the time that we've been around. I don't know what your thoughts are, but I definitely see a shift in the culture, and the survey really proves that too.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely. I think, too, we talked going back to kind of reducing stigma. A big part of that was making resources available for things like yoga and meditation and, like you said, it's almost a little mind blowing because it's just not something that you would ever expect, but it's like a big part of what people say that they want, and I think the least we can do as professionals in this space is create those resources for them.
Speaker 2:
And I think that that's one of our biggest concerns. I think we were talking off air about this, but you know, starting in April of 2024, I'm going to restart my group for first responders. Don't know what I consider first responders police, ems, paramedics, fire er people and let's not forget our correctional staff, who get to see first responders stuff firsthand in a community that's very gated, but nonetheless, first responder stuff, oh yeah, and dispatch too I forgot dispatch every time in my it's okay.
Speaker 2:
It's not okay because lisa, who's going to run the group with me, is a dispatcher you were getting there.
Speaker 2:
I saw you going there, I just helped you get there, don't worry, lisa's going to kick my ass on you. I said it's okay. Uh, I love you, lisa, um, but I I think that that's the stuff that we need to work on getting those resources in the hands of first responders. I mean, this might be, you know, we didn't really rehearse any questions here but what can we do to get those resources more in the hands of first responders, because that's the hardest part, in my opinion.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, well, I think it starts with buy-in and I think that's why what I always strive for is to have those voices guide the work that we're doing and first responders being part of this research and like us using this research to create those resources. Like we're not just talking out of our ass, right, like we actually have this information, speak for yourself. Well, yeah, maybe you steve, but, um, like we actually have this coming directly from first responders doing the work every day, saying, nope, we want this. Like, please, you know, this is something that we're interested in.
Speaker 3:
So, yeah, but then also, I think, like you said, having somebody who is a dispatcher, or having somebody within the group that is a peer that actually understands the day-to-day work, like we've talked about a few times. Like we're not first responders, so we, we don't know. We have experience that is close to it, but we don't know. So having those peers not only part of things like groups and other things, but like almost vouching for it and saying, look, like I know it's hard to show up to a group and talk about the shit you're going through, but I'm going to do it. I think it'd be cool if you did it, or whatever you know, I think having that like voice within a department goes really really far.
Speaker 2:
You know and there's a couple of things I want to say to that the follow-up research, interestingly enough, is mixed as to having a first responder or not running the group with a clinician.
Speaker 2:
It's actually fascinating to me that in like no, I'd rather have just a clinician, which is, again, counterintuitive in many, many ways. Number one, but I also think that you know in number two, which is also very important, is that when I said to I this is a guy that again, I'm sorry for stereotypes, but fuck, I live in a world where, you know, stereotypes exist for a reason burly guy that I see for treatment, uh, who happens to be a first responder I'm not going to tell you what branch you like. Are you going to be able to do some yoga here, like, are you interested? Well, it'd be nice if we can just have, like a yoga, like I'm going to do research to find a yoga place for you guys, so that one day when we're running the group, we're going to go to that studio and we're going to do yoga. It was just again counterintuitive. And call me stereotypical, I'll live with myself, but I was like man, what have we done to the system and how can we keep this momentum going?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and I think I'm glad that you brought up the piece about like maybe it's better to have a group run with just a clinician versus a peer. But I think what I've heard in the past is first responders being afraid to take advantage of peer support because they're afraid that what they say is going to be shared with other people, because they're afraid that what they say is going to be shared with other people. And even as just a regular old civilian like I don't want my shit out there. So I totally get it Right, like that's why you're on a podcast, but anyway, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:
Sorry, I had to go there Sorry.
Speaker 3:
It's okay, I can handle it. But yeah, seriously, like it's so true, I mean I get it. So, like it's back to that, like it's a fine line, it's a dance, like it's all about. You need to have all of these things available so that somebody who doesn't want to go to a peer group can just have a clinician group. Somebody who doesn't want to peer can have access to a peer.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 2:
You know, I think that that's one of my rules too. When I talked to the first response excuse me, my not only for my group, but even individually, I see I tell them that if you see someone who happens to be a police officer that you know from a different department or whatever, I would say if you talk about it outside the, when you open that door and you talk to someone, you'll never be allowed in this office again outside the. When you open that door and you talk to someone, you'll never be allowed in this office again.
Speaker 2:
My line, and my line is very clear on that and it's never going to change, because it's it's hard to expose yourself emotionally, it's harder to do it in a mental health realm. So if you go hey, I saw you at steve's office that's like the biggest exposure, like no one else might know who, what steve does. I can be a fucking yodeler for all they care, but nonetheless the other one feels exposed and I can't have that. And you know, it's surprising how much the guys really responded to that too, and gals too. I have some women in this group too in the past, um, but I think that it's here as you feel like they're going to be like again, what's what's?
Speaker 2:
My firefighter once said on my podcast it was what was his name? Eric who said you know, if you want gossip to be told, you go talk to someone, or you tell a firefighter. And yes, it's a stereotype and I'll live with myself. Thank you very much. But it's the truth too, because you very much. But it's the truth too, because, like you fucking talk and my firefighters were very happy, I said no one ever talks about like. It's almost like fight club, essentially right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it has to be to work.
Speaker 2:
And the guys really respected that, and not only that, respected me for saying it out loud. And I think that's the other part too that we find with the surveys that we, they want that confidentiality in order to move forward. So sometimes that's why they don't want to go to groups and that's why we need to be able to vet some people.
Speaker 3:
In my opinion, yeah, yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean as much as we want these resources to be super widely available and, like everyone, have access, it's also important, as leaders of it, of part of the continuous work that we're going to do.
Speaker 2:
And I'm going to not share too much, but we found some interesting resource. But you know what they do is they vet the therapist to work with first responders and I think that's a fascinating process that hopefully we can continue discussing among ourselves. And it's not easy going to a therapist and I've seen it too like too many guys come in and say, oh yeah, I went into this person who said they worked with first responders and ended up wanting to just talk about, you know, blue babies and shit like that and that's. You know, that's not how I work as a therapist. But people who say they're first responder therapists versus being a first responder therapist is two different things in my opinion, have somebody that they want to, that they don't like they're gonna tell you, um, so it's good.
Speaker 3:
I think that's a good thing, right, because this is not the space for like that voyeurism or, like you know, wanting that, you know those war stories. So absolutely, I think too. The other thing I wanted to mention about like different resources we found too that in our survey they were hoping to have more like in-house therapy and almost like in a mandated way, which you know again, may be potentially surprising but also like totally understandable, because I think it takes away all of that stigma around going right, because it's like, oh you know, it's six months checkup, like let's go in and talk for an hour or whatever, whatever that would look like I don't know. But I think there's different ways that we can make these things work within this field, based on what we found in our survey.
Speaker 2:
And I really think that you know, I'm so proud that we met each other and we're going to work together on this, because it's so easy to hear people talk about first responders. It's another thing for people to actually be competent at this shit. You know, and unfortunately the ones that I found the most better at this is the ones who've done ride-alongs or people who have worked as first responders and unfortunately, in the therapeutic world and no offense to all my therapy friends out there, I'm not trying to shit on you guys they're few and far between that are able to get that.
Speaker 3:
Well, and the thing is, like I said, everyone is good at different things. Like I don't, it's not my favorite and I'm not as necessarily good at, like, working with children, you know, and there's many, many, many therapists who really love that and do great work doing that. So, like there's no disrespect, no hate.
Speaker 2:
It's just that we all enjoy and are better at different things I'm, I'm able to you know you talk about gallows humor but like being able to also kind of like hear a story and knowing that you can safely say to a guy, wow, it's really fucked up. When I say guy, for the record I also mean gals, please understand, there's no sexism in my language here. Um, and if you're offended, write me, what do I care? But I think that being able to say wow, that's fucked up is probably more validating to a first responder world. But you got to choose the moment and that's not something you can teach someone. It's got to be really at the right moment, the right time and you had to be there, done that in order to understand that and make gallows humor, and at the right place at the right time. Making that comment right away is not necessarily healthy, and sometimes it is very healthy to say it right away because that'll like lighten up the mood. But you can't teach that, that's, you know. You can't. There's no class for that right.
Speaker 3:
Right, you don't learn that in like your master's degree.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think it's the same thing with working as a first responder, one of the things that I get pissed off. Uh, no matter when something bad happens in the first responder world. Oh well, well, they should have known better. They chose this profession and all that. Listen ass. Do you think that the fucking classes do everything to tell you, oh, this is what you're going to do in this situation? What about your job? Has your job ever prepared you for everything you're going to fucking do? No, All right, fuck off. Same thing for my job. Sorry, that's one of my biggest pet peeves, like running after first responders. Are there bad first responders out there? Yes, 5% of them are shitty, Just like 5% are shitty therapists. 5% are shitty Dunkin' Donuts workers, 5% are shitty doctors and whatever profession you want to choose. That's going to happen. It's just life.
Speaker 3:
But to overgeneralize and then judge them for something that you have no fucking clue. That pisses me off, and I'm not a first responder, I'm just some guy who treats them, and that pisses me off to no ends. No, I can relate, and I. Part of what we saw in our survey is that dealing with the public is also hard, and public perception is also hard for first responders and there's lots of things that they wish people knew about what it's like to be a first responder and so, yeah, like I don't know how to be an accountant, so I'm not going to go do your taxes or act like I know how to do taxes. So I completely agree that it pisses me off too for people to act like experts on how to be a first responder when they're not one, so agreed.
Speaker 2:
You know, and I think that that's why that survey was so important and the follow up is going to be even more important. I added a question on gender, Not what gender the person is, but how is it to integrate women in the first responder world? Yes, there's been many nurses, many PAs, many doctors in the ERs. There's been many female EMTs and paramedics, not necessarily at fire or police, but fire and police is fairly new to have female presence. And again I'm getting again preliminary information. There's been a lot of adaptation issues, and not because of gallows humor, it's not what you think actually yeah, yeah, definitely looking forward to like diving deeper into that for sure I think that I've met.
Speaker 2:
You know, like I joke no joking here, it's the truth. I don't think my gallows humor is any different with Catherine and that doesn't even affect her, it doesn't even touch her. Same thing with the guys, it's just like the side to do the same thing. But there are specific challenges that women face in this environment. That is particularly interesting and I can't wait to share those responses as we go along. But, um, you know, we've been talking for over an hour now and I might make this a two-part episode because I could go on and on. Obviously, it's clear that we get along and we have the same motivations, but maybe you can tell me more about the services you offer, because I think that might be important for other people to hear that.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, sure. So I offer, like I mentioned before, cit training. So for people who run like CIT T-TACs and organize different CIT trainings, I'm definitely somebody who is willing and would love to participate in CIT training. And then I also offer consultation for first responders, frontline workers, to improve wellness within their workplace. So if that's something that you're interested in, I would love to talk to you as well.
Speaker 2:
And we didn't even touch on that. But eating and nutrition, yes, Another and I want to give credit to Catherine because she's the one who brought that up when we first did the survey and I'm like that's a great question. We put that in there and, lo and behold, she was absolutely right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it's a huge passion of mine to when we talk about, like, what you're putting in your body as far as like health and wellness, something that I think is really overlooked and can be like huge and make a big difference.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, and you know when you do this job. I mean, I was just a ride along, but sometimes you know, our meal between two calls is a McDonald's bullshit or and that wasn't healthy. But it was funny that if we had time to sit down and chat it was so much easier to finish that shift. And even those little things during a shift makes a huge difference.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean I can't tell you how many times I was made fun of for like bringing my salad in from home and eating it Right, so got to do what you got to do.
Speaker 2:
Well, how people can you know if they do? You talked about CIT, you talked about helping first responders, and obviously we're going to continue working on our projects together, so obviously you're going to be some stuff there too. How can people reach you in order to talk more about any of these things?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, thank you so much for asking. So my website is just my namecom, so Catherine Branca, and it's K-A-T-H-R-Y-N-B-R-A-N-C-Acom. I'm only on LinkedIn because social media is of all kinds of thoughts about social media, so you can find me on LinkedIn and then my email address is just CatherineLADC at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:
And what we're going to do is we're going to put that in the show notes so people can reach out for katherine and um, you know, I'm going to have her back on because, because I could do whatever I want number one.
Speaker 2:
But number two, I, I really I again I said she's my friend by frankly. I think that it's rare that we're able to talk so frankly about mental health and first responders in a way that the island of isolation, that that that that it creates. It's nice to have a ally, a friend and someone that we can trust in that island and I do appreciate you for that too me too. Yeah, I feel the same way looking forward to talking to you outside of this, but I'm looking forward to having you on also again.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much, steve, this was great Thanks.
Speaker 2:
Well, that completes episode 146. Catherine Branca, we're going to keep on working together anyway, so I will say thank you, but I know we're going to work together. I hope you guys really enjoyed the interview as much as I did, but episode 147 will be one about imposter syndrome and I don't know if you guys have ever felt that, but I'm going to definitely be talking about that. It will be a solo episode for me, so I will talk to you then.
Speaker 1:
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