This episode discusses trauma-informed approaches to community engagement and relationship-building which respects and recognizes trauma and resilience in the community and in the Edmonton Police Service.
This episode includes a discussion about mental health, wellness, vicarious trauma, mindfulness, yoga and collective care practices among police officers within the Edmonton Police Service.
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>> Myrna McCallum : I'm Myrna McCallum, Metis Cree lawyer and passionate promoter of Trauma informed layering. Welcome back to the Trauma Informed Lawyer Podcast. As you know, I believe that law schools and bar courses are missing a critical competency requirement in their curriculum. Trauma Informed Lawyering. Becoming a Trauma Informed lawyer will, among other things, challenge you to critically reflect on your personal behaviors, beliefs and biases, call on you to positively transform the way you approach advocacy, guide your practice to avoid doing further harm to others, and ask that you commit to remaining open to learn new and old knowledge you didn't know you needed before beginning your career. Your education starts right here, right now. The BC law foundation has generously offered to cover the transcripts for season two of the trauma informed lawyer podcast. So to them, my hands go up.
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>> Myrna McCallum : Thank you, superintendent Scott Jones of the Edmonton police service. Welcome to the trauma informed lawyer podcast.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Thank you so much for having me here. I'm truly honored to, have this conversation with you. I've been looking forward to it very much.
>> Myrna McCallum : Me too. Talk a little bit about your background.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Sure. So I've been with, EPS for just about 29 years. I started, when I was 21 years old and then I worked in patrol. Like everybody, I, walked a beat. I was in training section, so I got to train recruits. I was then into professional standards branch, so internal affairs investigating other police officers. then got promoted into there. I was a patrol sergeant for a couple of years. From there I went to homicide section for four and a half, which I really truly enjoyed. then I was fortunate to get an opportunity to go work at the zebra child protection center as a staff sergeant in charge of child abuse or child protection section. from there I went to, got promoted to inspector and was in HR initially for a couple of plus years and then I met, went to major crimes as an inspector and then I went to northeast patrol branch as an inspector and then about nine months ago got promoted to superintendent. And I'm in charge of what's called social policing division, which is a pretty unique and relatively new invention so far.
>> Myrna McCallum : Well, congrats on the promotion.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: thank you
>> Myrna McCallum : First and foremost, secondly, social policing division. Tell me a little bit about what that is.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: So social policing division, has our police and crisis team. So that's a relatively fairly well established. I think it's been in existence since 2004 where it's a police officer and a mental health, worker and they respond to calls and deal with people in crisis and mental health crisis. The new part of our area is so I'll cover that next. I have victim services or crime and trauma support services, I have document services. That's all in one branch. And then on the other side I have partnership and stakeholder relations kind of at the higher level, strategic level. But the new and innovative program ah we have going is called help the Human Centered Engagement Liaison partnership that partners a police officer in uniform with a social agency. Navigator right now with Boyle street and Mustard Seed are the two agencies we utilize for that and they are partnered up to go deal with the vulnerable people in Edmonton. And we have many to really meet them where they are and how those vulnerable people are kind of identified where the caseload is. There's people a lot smarter than me that came up with a matrix and they determined the top 453 people in Edmonton who were causing or the subject of the most social disorder calls, whether it was mental health or troubled person or etc. So they over the course of a nine month span would have been dealt with by police a whole bunch of times. So that's kind of the matrix. So then when a patrol officer responds, deals with one of the vulnerable people in the community they, they can get a hold of our help team and if it's one of the people on our matrix they will go and take that individual off their hands in a warm handoff. And really it's about meeting that vulnerable person where they are. So we don't. Well, I didn't know any of this before but one of the biggest barriers for people is not having identification. And then if you don't have identification you can't get a bank account, you get funds, you can't get into housing. All those like those. What we would think would be simple and innocuous is actually a giant barrier. So having our folks try to navigate through the barriers that are all systems. Like there's barriers in policing but there's certainly barriers in a whole bunch of other areas. And trying to navigate through those, not to overuse that term, to get that vulnerable person to a point of wellness, whatever wellness means for them. That's the important part. I think all these systems are so good at telling people what they need but rarely do we listen and actually talk to the individual and see what they need from their perspective. And we're really trying to turn that and listen a little bit more instead of talking.
>> Myrna McCallum : It sounds like it's a whole new way of engaging with community or some members.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Well we had a it was called a heavy Users of service program. And I think it was in about 2012, 2013, which again, was fairly groundbreaking. And it had a whole bunch of partners, social agency partners, alberta health services partners, police, et cetera. And they would deal with the most complex and vulnerable people. So a whole bunch of comorbidities, whether it's addictions or mental health or, justice system issues, which was, again, groundbreaking. But the issue was because the complexity, the number of people we could actually help in that program was relatively limited because they were so time consuming to, try to get stabilized in whatever fashion that looks like. So this is kind of morphed into a little bit more being able to help a greater number of people. And again, we still have complicated people on the caseload, where initially we thought, well, maybe people will be on the caseload for three to six months and then they're off. And some are. Some are relatively quick, and can get ideas or housing, et cetera. But others are due to their complexities and due to the trauma that they have suffered, and certainly into the intergenerational trauma they have suffered, they're taking longer on the caseload, and that's okay. So it's just making sure that, again, we're doing what we can and respecting that. The police don't always need to be in these spaces. Like, we can be there as a justice system navigator to help with that side of it and from a safety security for the person, in the car with them. But a lot of the times this is not necessarily a police thing, and the community pretty much told us that police don't need to be in these spaces, which we agree with. but there's still a place for us. And I think this is that saw for meeting in the middle where we can still have not a say, but we can still help people out alongside, a social agency partner who are the subject matter experts in that field.
>> Myrna McCallum : So I love that. Now the edmonton police service has listened to folks and is pairing up, the police officer with the civilians subject matter expert. How would you find the response to this approach? What has it been and what is the feedback?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: It was really interesting, because I came in after it had already been started for about a month, I think. I came in in february, of this year. And initially you have two cultures that are not clashing, but they're certainly rubbing up against each other, which was a social agency and the police. So we had to rub points. And really it was getting just like always, if we have human beings getting into room, listening to each other, respecting each other and having conversations with each other. You get a better understanding of what each of perspectives are. So now after that time and having those rub points kind of spoken, about we're now kind of clicking where the social agency navigator very much wants to be in a car with a police officer and they're talking about like, let's make sure it's a one to one relationship where we have one police officer paired up with one navigator versus like two or three navigators to one. So it's been an interesting sociological experiment as well and breaking down some of those barriers between these different agencies or these different perspectives.
>> Myrna McCallum : Very cool. What is the potential for risk or harm in that space where you have a huge gap between trauma heavy and a lack of being trauma informed?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: One of the courses that I took that was probably most influential on my life, not only professionally but personally, was being a crisis negotiator. So as a crisis negotiator for about five years and it really taught me how to actively listen, not think about what am I going to say next. It actually made me think, okay, I'm listening to what you're saying. If I'm m using whatever techniques, whether it's paraphrasing or silence or whatever. so I really got to hear what you had to say as a person in crisis all the time times when I was doing that. But that made me a better homicide detective because it made me a better interviewer where I could literally sit again with a person who either the family member of a victim or an accused person who was accused of murder and get to know them in a weird, really brief way, build a rapport with them and get to know them as a human being in that room. I had one interview with a lady who had murdered her common law. And she was a really, really nice person under the circumstances. Once basically she would had been intoxicated, the homicide had happened. But then once I'm in a room with her and having a conversation, we're literally having a conversation as people. But I didn't have any background in trauma informed or nothing formal, like what you're teaching here, which is remarkable. so I think I'd have been even better served had I known that after going to child protection section, obviously the caseload unfortunately is extremely heavy. The subject matter is extreme difficult and it was fairly trauma informed. Not from a formal perspective though, because that was the first instance I had where I had a significant number of partners at the table. So we had police children's services, RCMP, health, psych services, etc. So we had kind of had everybody here on the table and we approach it with, okay, as we're talking about a file, let's put the kiddo in the center of the room and how do we all wrap around that kiddo to make sure that they are best looked after? And that's was how zebra was created, basically, so they didn't have to go to a police station. So using that kind of lens and that background has informed me to be placed into this space because this is really not my wheelhouse. Like, I had my couple of years at zebra, but I really haven't been operating in spaces with multiple partners, competing priorities, maybe different perspectives. So. But I like going places where I don't know the answers. Unfortunately, I get bored really easily, so I kind of like being challenged that way. So when I was forced out to get promoted and was asked which one would you prefer, this job or another job? I chose this job because I like coming in here and not really knowing what I'm doing and figuring it out.
>> Myrna McCallum : I really like that. And I say I don't know all the time because I think as long as we're saying I don't know, there's always like potential capacity and opportunity to continue learning and being open to learning. Right. And I know that the language trauma informed gets tossed around quite a bit. Now, I know from having talked to your brother that the edmonton police service is quite invested in gaining more skills and learning more about trauma informed approaches to policing for all kinds of reasons. And so can you share with us a little bit about how trauma informed approaches to doing the work you do serves not only police officers well, but serves the relationship with the community well, like better than maybe how it was, you know, 15, 20 years ago. Is there a shift?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: There's starting to be a shift. So I don't think we should get too much credit yet. And I honestly, I hate to give props my brother, but I'm going to have to in this instance where, really the reason we're as far as head as we are is because Danny has pushed that envelope. And then now I'm fortunate where I have a little more stuff on my shoulder so him and I can kind of push it a little bit more forward. So as an example for me having the autonomy to have you come and present to us, and then my brother has kind of designed a trauma enforced policing program where, he came over the course in September, third Tuesdays where we did, presentations Three eight hour days basically to my folks and help, et cetera, as well as some of the other people on the offender management side. So he's really, I would suggest, gets the credit for pushing that envelope, more. So our organization is open to it, but I don't want it to be just a checkbox thing like you said. And I think we're not quite there where it's not just that, him and I have had conversations where I think we have to take first aid every three years. I would suggest we need to get to a place where we're taking trauma training probably every year or two as an entire service. And I know that's tough because we have 1800 sworn and another 750 civilian people. So whatever, 2,500 people. So it's resource difficult. But I think the pandemic has shown that we don't all have to be in a room and we can start to look at different ways that we can move this training forward and how it impacts the community is we would approach, let's say we go to a family fight or a call like that, where instead once we get everything stabilized and kind of get it out of crisis, we start to recognize that we're seeing people in the latest chapter, the chapter Right now we don't know what happened previous to chapter 11 or chapter 10. So we're starting to recognize why are we here, what precipitated what happened to that individual who got. So it ended up being at this stage also, I think informs us from an internal perspective of recognizing we see bad things all the time. Patrol officers and frontline officers are constantly diluted with bad images, bad calls, people in crisis, people who don't want us there, horrible stuff. So recognizing how does that impact us as well? And then how does that impact us as an organization? If I'm a police officer and I have significant trauma or I went to a really difficult call, how am I going to act at the next call? How am I going to act with my peers? How am I going to act with my family? So really expanding that trauma informed lens to not only the community and outside, but internally as well.
>> Myrna McCallum : I have a lot of things going through my mind as you're sharing, like I think about. So last week I was presenting to medical regulators all over the world and I heard myself say like, pretty, like on repeat, emphasizing the importance of connection and relationships. And I think about, you know, the hard road ahead that the police have because we know historically the police have, have not had a good Relationship, and I'm thinking right now with indigenous people. Right. So whether it's the historical stuff of, you know, some police, helping, Indian agents or, priests and nuns to take children from their homes and put them in residential schools, or if it's the. Just the treatment of some homeless people who are indigenous, by police. Police, like stories of police brutality etc, and, you know, the fact that the edmonton police service is recognizing that there's a whole history that has gotten people to the place that they are right now, and that there's things like intergenerational trauma, which are critical factors that don't necessarily. That might inform why people need wellness checks, but not necessarily why they need incarceration or need to be held in cells, which I think was, quite a common practice. I just think that the potential for transforming the relationship through trauma informed policing is just so hopeful. I find it really hopeful. And. And so I just wanted to share that with you because, like, I just. I feel like. I feel it on a really deep level. We need to look at the relationships that we have with folks who have been historically marginalized or disadvantaged or subject to injustice or mistreatment or what changes do you to see being made in the coming years as more m. Trauma informed education comes into your organization?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Well, I think, first of all, police officers, police agencies across the country need to acknowledge, what our role was initially, like you said, as far as being with, the indian agents and scooping children and putting them in residential schools. And really that was a part of the job when policing was first created here. And getting over the, ah, apologizing like we were talking earlier about the Leonard summers video that you showed at our training, which was absolutely remarkable and I highly recommend. But the time, the apologies with nothing changing is. I think everyone has collectively lost their patience with that. so really, again, getting into learning what trauma is, learning what intergenerational trauma is and approaching that with humility and assuming that you don't know anything. Like, the more I learn about all of this stuff, the more I realized I don't know anything about anything. Like, you ended up being like, I feel like a toddler sometimes. Like what? I didn't had any. I'm 50 years old and I didn't know that. So approaching it with that beginner mindset starts. That is going to start the conversation and when possible, approaching it without an emotional or defensive background. Right. Like if our uniform, I know, is very triggering for people. And when I get the opportunity I've been so Fortunate. I've got to go to, the Stan Daniels Healing center, which is a federal institution in Edmonton and they have a warrior program and a grad and I've got to go to three of their grads. And I know the men who have done tremendous work there and expose all of their vulnerabilities. But it's such a proud moment for me to be in the space and I apologize in advance and I'm like, I'm not here with my uniform to traumatize you or re. Traumatize you. And I wear kind of a more ceremonial tunic. But it is to recognize all the awesomeness that you guys have done. And then I've seen some of them since then and they come up and talk to you. So just about those barriers and getting rid of the barriers by being human beings with each other. So if we can do that on a one to one, then we need to start expanding that out into changing our system. So teaching recruits. Recruits are open books. They're sponges. They'll do what they're told. And we do have trauma informed training that my brother does with recruits. But it has to also then be. There's a. I think the sergeants in any organization are the most important rank because they're the ones influencing the most number of people, particularly in patrol, because the patrol sergeant will have anywhere from 12 to 15 people that they're supervising. So the sergeant and getting that rank on board is going to increase the legitimacy of the training and it's going to then take hold. That following that is making sure that the senior leadership, because I don't think we're there yet in any organization where the senior leadership really knows and understands what the trauma informed practice is, I'm fortunate because obviously Danny and I are so close. So he's gone on his journey, I've gone on mine. another precipitating event with all that was Danny and I were both really, really involved with the Victims Homicide Support Society, which does an amazing job of looking after the families of victims. So again, getting into a room and we first started going there, we were not popular. They'd had difficulties with the justice system, obviously with police. and of course they're tremendously traumatized with their family member having been murdered. But we built relationships over the course of 10 years where we were lucky enough to go speak to at their conferences. I still go see them and it's like I've got a whole different family in a weird way. Like, I go see these people and they're like, My moms and grandmas and dads, but an extended version of it. So it's about, I think individually, being vulnerable and open and systemically, and organizationally showing some vulnerability as well.
>> Myrna McCallum : I think if Brene Brown was listening to our conversation, she would just love that because she talks about how vulnerability can be your superpower. I like what I'm hearing because it echoes a lot of what I say in the trainings that I do and in the recent thing that I did when I came in to talk with your folks. Why we need to think about prioritizing relationships with people and how vulnerability and humility and empathy and compassion are really critical to pieces, to relationship building and acknowledging that what people need is connection. And it's somewhere within that place that they find a sense of safety and can begin to build trust with folks. And so it's really about showing up and meeting people where they are for the purpose of actually leaning in to listen and to understand and to validate their experience as a person opposed to doing the thing you said earlier, which is what I think a lot of us have been trained to do, which is listen for the purpose of responding. I love this potential for transformation. and I wish that more people, more police services in this country would prioritize relationship and just simply ask themselves, how much time am I investing in building relationships with this community that I'm serving or patrolling or whatever it might be, as opposed to offloading that on, you know, liaison officers or community liaison officers or whatever you call those people within your organization. But what are you doing to build relationship? You know, it sounds to me like with the work that you're doing and how that's going to permeate throughout the organization, the potential for addressing biases and investing in relationships and starting to see the whole person, the potential is there. And it's in different ways it's already like unfolding, which I think is quite profound. I mean, I just want to like give your entire organization a hug just for at least starting to open its eyes and look to. There's got to be a better way. And maybe that better way is a trauma informed way.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Yeah, I totally agree. And again, right to the street level with. Because we have such, a. I know there's always somebody who's going to do something dumb or make a bad decision or whatever. But my time in northeast recently, there's so many young, well, relatively young, junior young to me members, who are out there doing ridiculously awesome work. Like the number of times I Handed out awards of merit because they literally saved someone's life, at a traumatic event or took the extra time with the family of someone who had committed suicide. Like just the compassion that actually is shown that we don't talk about. I was blown away by it and quite frankly I was actually going to Northeast and I was thinking that's probably going to be my last posting and then I'm going to retire because I'm coming to the end and hanging around with those members and their enthusiasm and their willingness to do what they can to make things better for people actually filled my cup a little bit. And then I ended up now here I am still with more stuff on my shoulder like I said before. But yeah there's there the future. I'm not super optimistic all the time but I am optimistic in this regard that at least we're having these conversations. You and I can have an awesome conversation and talk about these things and again there's no emotion involved with our respective perspectives and we can actually discuss things and we not disagreeing. And I think I've ever heard anything that I disagree that you've said. So that's worked out pretty well. But even if we did, I'm confident we could have a conversation about it. And this is the things that actually change people's hearts, and minds not to be too cliche, definitely.
>> Myrna McCallum : And it's all about changing hearts and mind. So let's talk about like we talked a little bit about like definitely the benefits to community, the benefits to the relationship, as experienced by the community. But let's talk about what are some of the benefits to police.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Well I think there's a couple things that so the one benefit if you're approaching things and again there's things you're going to go to or we're going to go to that people are in crisis. But as soon as we can get that crisis averted and get to having a conversation, there's a lot less likelihood that force is going to be needed or the officer is going to face an officer safety threat or risk etc. So right away at the start we're probably going to. And I'm not, this is not evidence based, I'm not quitting any stats but I would suggest when you go into a house like that and start having conversation with people, the chance and risk to you and the people in the house are going to be reduced. If you ask every recruit when they ask you in the hiring process, why are you here? 100% of the time they said to help people. So this is actually helping people. Right? If you're not here to compassionately walk with people, and I'm not saying there's not accountability, some people, there's going to be arrested and they're going to get sentenced and that's going to be a part of it because there is accountability that still has to happen. So I'm not saying we're not doing that at all. But if you're not here to actually help people with compassion and empathy, in my opinion, you don't belong in this space. If that's not what you're here for, then find another job. So again, you get a satisfaction. And I've struggled a little bit in the last little while being in senior management of figuring out why am I here? Like, what good am I actually doing? What's the point to this? And now it's 28 years in and I come from a police family, so obviously my brother's a cop, my dad's retired, my uncle's a retired, EPS officer as well. But you kind of get into a little bit of, ah, it's not a crisis because that's too strong of a word, but a little bit of introspection. Go on. I don't know what the point of this is. And really it comes down to this is a little bit hippie ish, and I'm turning into a little bit of a hippie these days. Is, in your day to day, did you have a positive impact on the human being you talk to? And that could be a person at a call, it could be the clerk at the 7:11, or did you have a negative? If you had more positives than negatives, in my opinion, you've won the day. And it really boils down to something as simple as that. And that's kind of been how I've calibrated myself for the last little while and figuring out what am I doing in the space? Can I positively impact the person sitting across from me? And now I'm lucky enough to be in a spot where I can maybe start to positively impact a whole bunch of people in those spaces. Because I have like a division that I get to be in charge of,
>> Myrna McCallum : as you say that I'm thinking about those five Rs of cultural humility. I, I think I probably shared it with your group and it comes from a medical journal. and it gives us a bit of like a roadmap or a guide, a thing that we should be asking ourselves around, like, did I treat Everyone, respectfully, how was my resiliency impacted? Was cultural humility relevant in this interaction? Right. And I think we should be asking ourselves those questions all the time, but not just in the context of cultural humility, but also also in the context of trauma informed practice. What benefits, if any, do you see getting an education in trauma and trauma informed approaches? Like, what benefits might that have on police officers in terms of safeguarding their mental health so that they could get through a career in policing in a good way that doesn't result in complex mental health issues?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: again, I think it comes down to, you're so you're sitting with the individual who you're dealing with at a call and you're starting to. Not starting to. You're recognizing that they come with their own history and background and trauma. And sometimes you need to flip that a little bit. And some of the vulnerable community members are, the most resilient people I've ever come across. Like, I'm pretty certain if I had gone through what they had gone through, not a chance in hell would I be where they even are. I'm pretty confident of that. So again, back to, you're there to help people and then from a safeguarding perspective, recognizing that the resilience and the issues that that individual went through and recognizing your own. So for me recently, as far as wellness, because nobody really tells you about that, when I first started, I wasn't expecting to have to see what I've seen, do what I've done, gone through that, and looking at it from, I, really kind of gone into a deep dive with yoga and meditation and breathing and reading Gabor Mate and Bessel Van der Kolk and really starting to look at it from a nervous system perspective. And then they talk about. And most police agencies will have pretty robust, employee assistance programs. And yeah, go see the psychologist. Well, I did the mandatory ones back in the day and I thought they were. For me personally, they were a waste of time. Like it was another checkbox. But recently I'm like, hey, no, I want to. I talked to a friend of mine recently and she said, yeah, we hire people, go through all these tests to make sure you're physically fit, psychologically fit, morally sound, intelligent, whatever. But then we don't really make sure you leave in that same way. So prior to. And I've watched retired members, because my dad is one, and I watched them, 10 years later, 15 years later, starting to think about a fatal collision they went to in like 1974, just bubbling to the Surface because to your point, we do a really good job in the justice space. It's not just police officers, of burying that stuff down at the bottom of the ocean into a crate and really hoping that crate doesn't open. The crate's going to open. And I found for me, the crate has started to open. So I finally actually took my own advice because I'm wicked good at giving a whole bunch of advice out and not following my own. So I started, actually went to therapist, starting this year. And it's been remarkable and it's been difficult and it's hard work, it's harder than I expected it to be, but completely worth it because again, the goal, you can't help anybody else and you can't be there as a good mom, dad, whatever if you're not looking after yourself. So it's not selfish. It is absolutely critical that we collectively look after ourselves in whatever way that is. Therapy may not be for everybody. Yoga is not for everybody breathing, whatever, running whatever it is, but figuring out a way to tap into our parasympathetic system and not always in the sympathetic system and put the brake on a little bit because they're really, really good at hitting the gas pedal all the time and however that is for each individual journey. But really being introspective and mindful about that because you're going to be a better police officer, lawyer, mom, dad, uncle, brother, whatever. If your self care is sound in that respect.
>> Myrna McCallum : I like the metaphor that you used about the crate opening because, you know, when I talk to folks about vicarious trauma, I talk about, you know, not in addition to how it has a way of changing your worldview and really harming the way you see the world. Like suddenly the world is dark, the world is dangerous. In the context of maybe policing, you know, all people or all indigenous people are this or that or whatever. Our vision becomes really scary. And every exposure that we have had to these traumatic events are cumulative as we push things down. And the thing that tends to lend itself to some kind of like big explosion in our lives, whether it ends up being a DUI or a divorce or a self harming event or whatever it might be. It's never that one thing. It's those hundreds or thousands of, of little things that are piling up that we kept pushing down, pushing down, pushing down. And so it's interesting that you talk about like the crate opening like 30 some years later. You're right, it is inevitable. And one of the things I call on lawyers for people who ask me and to come and train them, one of the things I ask them to do is make the time in your day to process what it was that you were exposed to in that day. What did that kick up for you? How are you going to address it?
>> Myrna McCallum : Address it, particularly if it's something that is really, stirring things up within you, and don't push it away, because it doesn't go away. It will just pile up and wait and wait and wait until at the most inopportune time, it will explode everywhere. And so I love that you use that analogy about the crate opening. How do you invite people, police officers, to start to look at the impacts that their work has on them? I mean, recognizing you and I are both not. I don't think you're a psychologist. I'm definitely not a psychologist. And so, But we know that, you know, we're human beings. We also bring our own traumas and our own shit and our own stuff to our work. And sometimes those things collide with the traumas of other people, and we have a human response. And I know that for folks who have had traumatic experiences, the biggest fear is confronting those traumas, like, feeling the thing that we're feeling. And so that's why so many people, I think, turn to things like drugs and alcohol and other addictions to just like, pretend like, nope, this isn't happening. Nope, I don't feel any of that. And it doesn't serve us well in the long run. And so you talked a little bit about meditation and yoga and mindfulness and breathing. How do you invite your colleagues or other police members to start to think about exploring what's going on internally?
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: I think approaching it from a couple different ways. One can be conversational like this and going, here's what I've gone through, and I've. I got feedback this week, even when I talk about myself going to therapy. And I was like, I really appreciate that. I'm like, well, also, to be fair, I have no vulnerability here in talking this right. Like, I. There's nothing bad's gonna happen to me by sharing that with people. And I hope that someone. Because I told a friend of mine who's not a police officer, he's like, I can't believe you're doing therapy. Like, you're always that guy who's got it's all together and you're with it and all that, and you're strong, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But I want to make sure that I'm looking after myself. So I can look after other people. So approaching it from that, like here's what my journey is and whatever credibility comes with that, it does. And then also approaching it from an academic point of view saying if we go to a domestic violence call and we are trauma informed and we treat everyone in there, the suspect as well as the victim, with compassion and empathy. Science has shown, and my brother can quote you the statistics or the studies that that person has a less likelihood to re offend. So if we can have that kind of impact on a domestic violence situation where we don't go in and tell the guy he's a piece of shit or he's garbage or whatever, and we actually go, okay, we're going to stabilize situation and we're going to look after this, yes, you're going to be charged, blah, blah, blah. But doing that with an ah, empathetic lens, we can actually reduce the chances that he goes back, likely he goes back and re offends on that victim. So kind of coming at all those different directions, showing different ways. So I'm lucky because I have a boss who lets me kind of have a lot of autonomy. So I've actually started teaching yoga in the space of where my folks are. So it's both police officers and social worker navigators. And I have anywhere from five to 15 people who show up and I do it every Thursday and we walk through and it's really getting people into the space to focus more on just being still and focusing on your breathing. The yoga, the movement is good, but really getting into that space and we've had some interesting reactions where people have had, because they're coming with their own respective trauma backgrounds, where they've had some, what appears to be a negative reaction, where there's some emotion released because we store all of this, like I use the metaphor of the box being stored at the bottom of the ocean. But really it's again back to Gabor Mate and Bethel Van der Kolk. It's restoring all that stuff within our neurology, within our hip joints or our shoulder joints or our neck or wherever we're storing our tension. And sometimes moving that out releases some of that and it feels yucky. But I think it's a positive as long as it's at a safe space. And then if you're looking for, you need additional help because I'm not a therapist, I'm just there to get people to move and breathe a little bit, seeking out the help that you need and then starting to Work through that. Because if you don't mindfully work through it, like you said, it's going to come out at some other point. And what kind of surprised me over the last year is it wasn't a precipitating event that started having stuff boiled to the surface for me. I didn't go to anything. I don't. I'm like basically a house cat now as far as work goes. so I didn't go to something that was traumatizing. I just. Stuff started to bubble and it. And it was what it was. And it's my nervous system doing it. And again, shifting the perspective, like I said, with vulnerable people and honoring their resilience, shifting that perspective in your own body going, okay, I appreciate what my nervous system is doing because it's doing it to protect me. That's the whole evolutionary reason for it to do so. Turning that perspective for me of going, thank you. Whatever it is that I'm feeling, I appreciate that. But let's work through that because I don't want to feel that right now and just shifting out again. That's with therapists, that I'm seeing who's helped me work through that. And I think that again, it's a little. It's not selfish. You have to look after yourself, but it's going to make you a better person in your profession, a better person in your life, a better person with your relationships.
>> Myrna McCallum : Right. I love that you're doing what you're doing with the yoga and the mindfulness and the breathing, because, I believe that that's like a demonstration of collective care, that this is how we can take care of each other. Because I know oftentimes, and you probably know this, if we're often left to our own devices, like, oh, go access the efat program or the counselors that we have, people won't do it. You just won't do it. And it's only when you are deep in that crate of emotion that doing this. Collective care, I think, is More organizations need to bring some kind of routine regular practice that allows people to just be present and still with each other and acknowledge that traumas, held on to by the body. And I know what you're talking about, about the emotional release. I did yoga years ago and I found every time I got really still, I would start to cry. And it totally freaked me out to stop doing it. Which I know is horrible because, like, I probably. That's the thing I need to do. Because you're right, we store these things in Our bodies. And I just want to come back to the point about, like, what you shared about the opening of the crate. And so for those who are listening to our conversation and you're telling yourself, I'm okay right now, I'm getting through this, I'm okay. Well, yeah, that's a coping mechanism. The. The nightmare comes. The opening of the crate, the explosion, the, the depression, anxiety, the nightmares, the. Everything that tends to come when we're out of it, when we stop doing it, and we start to, like, go into a whole other mode where we're not to going kind of in fight, flight, freeze, whatever it is, as soon as we're out of that scenario. So usually for lawyers and judges and cops, it tends to come when we go into retirement because for the first time, we're kind of still and we're not having to be in survival mode all the time. And then it comes. And so, you know, for folks who are listening to this, thinking, I'm okay, I'm okay. If you're not addressing what you're expecting, exposed to on a regular basis, that stuff just waits for you until that moment of stillness, 100%.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: And then there's. There's the other side of it too, where after particularly difficult calls, I've had people come up like, are you okay? Are you okay? And I'm. And I was in that instance. So there's sometimes where you're like, well, maybe I'm not okay, because I'm actually okay in this instance. So really just kind of, again, being mindful, taking a moment to really examine how you feel or what you feel and being okay with. Either way, like I said, there was a call that there's people all around me who, for suffering vicarious trauma, and me. And, it was a homicide file. And me and the other investigator were like, actually, we're okay. But now I'm starting to wonder, why am I okay? Because it is a difficult file. But just kind of sorting through that.
>> Myrna McCallum : Yeah, definitely. I mean, I also think about, like, the question around, are you okay? Like, what the hell is that really? Like, how are you? Were you okay? I remember a couple years ago, I had a client who, had witnessed, like a horrific event in the workplace. And the crisis counselor had. Was asking, you know, how are you doing? Are you okay? And, this fellow was like, yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. And it was only when the crisis counselor changed her line of questioning and said, okay, but how are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? You know, are you Having headaches? Are you having. Whatever. And it was only in drilling down into some of these other symptoms that this fellow was like, actually, I haven't slept with eggs since that has happened. Or when I do sleep, it comes back as a nightmare. It's replaying, or whatever it might be. So I do think, you know, for folks who are really invested in practicing collective care within their organizations, we have to get a little bit more creative around the questions we ask. And not to suggest that we need to be the therapist when the response comes, but we should definitely know who is available to help people through those difficult moments.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Yep. And having the courage to ask that question beyond the. Are you okay? You know, one of your colleagues? Because we know each other at, ah, work very well. So you're going to know when someone's struggling and having that courage and the vulnerability to go to that person going, hey, that was a really tough call. Are you sleeping? How are you feeling? Like all those types of things and getting. And then going, oh, yeah, okay, you're struggling. Here's. Here's someone who I think can help or whatever. And knowing that and basically navigating back to that word, navigating that individual through to whatever supports that they require.
>> Myrna McCallum : This is so awesome. this just makes me so hopeful, Scott, like, on so many levels, because, you know, you. You listen to me talk about things on the podcast and in the training I did, and I. I will always say to people, we cannot offer what we do not have. So if we don't have empathy for ourselves, compassion and patience, and if we're not a safe space within ourselves, we cannot offer any of that to anyone, and no one will feel those things in our presence. And I just think the work that you're doing and the work, of course, that your brother is doing, and just the forward, innovative, relationship trauma, informed intention of the Edmonton Police Service, it just gives me tremendous hope. I know it's a long way yet that we have to go to transform approaches to policing and relationships that have this, you know, historical connection to harm. But I'm. I'm so really incredibly hopeful and happy that you're doing what you're doing. And so thank you. And thank you for coming to talk with me today.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: I very much appreciate that. And, yeah, I'm. I was so excited to be here. You're a rock star. And your interview with Harold Jaunzems, I've listened to literally hundreds of podcasts. That's something I do all the time. That was probably one of my top ones that I've ever heard. He was remarkable. you're remarkable. Your training was fantastic. I hope. I don't know if you've done any other training with other police agencies, but if you haven't, you should be, because, that is so desperately needed across our whole system, et cetera. So I thank you so much for inviting me here. Was an absolute honor and a pleasure.
>> Myrna McCallum : Thank you, Scott. I hope you come back again one day, anytime you want.
>> Superintendent Scott Jones: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.