First Responders
We value those who protect, serve, and care for our community. We are your trusted guide through dark times. Things will get better.
The first one there.
The first contact.
The first to respond without having all the details and without the assurance of safety. First responders confront evil, pain, human suffering, and tragedy to serve our community.
Daily exposure to high-risk, high consequence
environments
Begin Counseling recognizes the unique nature of public safety professions. Law Enforcement, Fire Service, Emergency Medical Services, and Emergency Communications, among others, experience daily exposure to high-risk, high-consequence environments. Over time, the images, sounds, smells, thoughts, and details can build up and negatively impact sleep quality, relationships, mood, and overall quality of life.
Succeed personally and professionally
Mental and psychological health is essential for success both personally and professionally. Begin Counseling diligently pursues effective treatments, expands access to wellness solutions, and strives to reduce the stigma and barriers to facilitate true hope, wholeness, and connection for first responders and their families.
It is possible. You are not alone. We get it.
Our counseling process is tailored to comprehensively address the impacts of emergency service careers from training to retirement. It is possible, and our team is specifically equipped to come alongside first responders, to promote healthy, full careers, and transition into retirement with confidence and purpose. The decision you make now to address the ways your experiences, career, or circumstances (past or present) are affecting you, not only changes the trajectory of your life, but impacts generations.
We understand the unique challenges first responders and their families face at work and at home.
We do not provide psychological evaluations, and we do not perform fitness for duty exams. Your privacy and confidentiality are of utmost importance to us.
You will be respected, understood, and valued in our work together.
Counseling specialities
Trauma
Therapy
Addresses the impact of trauma on both the mind and body
EMDR
Therapy
Specialized approach to treat trauma and associated symptoms
Christian
Counseling
For clients seeking to integrate a biblical perspective into therapy
Our first responder counseling is for:
Corrections
Emergency Communications
Emergency Medical Personnel
Emergency Responders
EMTs
Firefighter
Fire Service
Law Enforcement
Local, State, and Federal Government Personnel
Military
Nurses
Paramedics
Physicians
Police
Hear from first responders
“Seeking professional help is one of the best things I have done, and it doesn't make you a weak person. I wish someone had pushed or recommended that I seek professional help earlier in my career but back then, you would have been looked down on. It was also something that was never talked about.
As Troopers and first responders we see the worst of society and just pushing it down will eventually catch up with you. Being emotionally numb is not normal even though we think it is sometimes. Seeking professional help doesn't mean you still won't have bad days because you will, it will just teach you how to get through the bad days easier than you did. Find a therapist who understands our world and if the first one doesn't work out, keep looking. Don't give up just because you have a bad experience with someone.
The support from my wife has been so instrumental because no matter what, she has been standing right beside me. She is one of the toughest people I know because of the things she has been through with me in my career. She has been a single mom at times and now even a single wife because of the travel and she is always there waiting on me with a smile on her face when I walk back in the door, which makes the bad days and times away from home better. She is such a strong Trooper's wife and that is one of the toughest roles I know.”
“I know I expose my family to things normal families probably never deal with. It’s extremely taxing on your family just existing in this career. Critical incidents add additional stress to families in law enforcement. I initially felt well-prepared managing the mental health challenges of the job.
I feel I did a good job for years until an extreme critical incident occurred. Shortly after that incident, I began to see myself spiral downhill. My wife has supported me beyond measure. It’s easy for spouses to 'be supportive' when things are good. But when things got really bad personally my wife was by my side the entire time. She continued to listen and support me in everything. She supported me going and continuing to go to therapy and even supported me going back to work after each critical incident I was involved in. Just knowing she was there and in my corner helped me mentally prepare myself for the job after those incidents.
Although I was the same way, I wish people wouldn’t be so hesitant to seek professional help. I have had life changing experiences through EMDR and really think it is a major factor in how I’ve continued a career in law enforcement. I am much more patient. I am more emotionally available and a significantly less stressed out. Find a professional to talk to if you are struggling. Find someone you like. I can see why people try it once and never go back but there is so much help and healing if you find the right place. You don’t have to suffer. It 100% gets better.”
"How do you tell someone who is 'tough' they need mental health? We spend much of our time preparing to be tough. We work out to physically to strengthen our bodies. We try to learn new skills to keep our minds sharp. We have even learned how to harden and disassociate ourselves to confront horrific incidents and continue about our day. Law enforcement can go through a Rolodex of memories featuring calls and crime scenes and think we have been largely unaffected by the tragedies we have been confronted with. We are even able to get back to the office and laugh about it. If you can laugh about it, it can’t hurt you, right? Even on the 'other side' of my incident I am amazed at how we manage to get by with very superficial coping mechanisms.
I envision cracking open a bottle of soda just enough to let out some pressure, but never pouring out any of the fluid. In the end it’s still full and waiting for the next ordeal to shake things up. We all need the tools that help us open the bottle and pour the fluid out. What keeps someone from seeking help? Pride. You have to find out what you aren’t willing to place on the alter of pride. What sacrifice are you not willing to make? Mine was my family. There were times I didn’t care about myself at all. Ultimately it was the effect I was having on my family that made me draw the line. I would ask what are you fighting for? More importantly, what are you WILLING to fight for? Without that I would have been lost. We are taught to assess situations and gather evidence to conclude cause and effect. We are not so good at turning that lens upon ourselves. Although we are very good at minimizing and dismissing.
At my worst, I was a ticking time bomb with a hair trigger. Everything would be fine until it wasn’t. And once the peace was disrupted, it was a while until I could reach homeostasis again. This lead to cycles of regret, shame, self-sabotage, and a retreat from family and everyday life. Going back to the soda analogy, if there’s less fluid in the bottle, there’s more room before you make a mess. These incidents don’t occur without collateral damage. Sadly, this affects those you care for the most, filling them with sadness, fear, and angst. Making their “safe place” feel anything but.
Even at its best, law enforcement puts a strain on a marriage and family. At its worst, it can devour a family and leave a wake of brokenness and destruction. Looking back on the career, it’s interesting that such strong people would have such fragile egos. Having gone through something as severe as I did, has made me feel more confident about sharing my opinion on mental health. Honestly, something less would still have had me trying to cope on my own. I was taken to a place I could no longer tread water.
Think of it as mental armor. There are training and tactics for the physical, and armor and tools for the body. Don’t neglect tools for the mind as well. It will make you more equipped for the job and a better home life. It takes deliberate intension and hard work. You have to put in the work. To use an exercise analogy, If I wanted to bench press 315 lbs, I can’t just show up to the gym and really, really want to do it. The intentions can be there, but when I get to the bench, the weight would crush me. The weight doesn’t lie. It tells me I haven’t put in the work to be able to succeed. About seeking professional help, 'In short, it is worth it.'"
First responder spouses and partners
Call us. Call someone. Start with what you have control over. You weren't trained for this career, but you're living it too. You're watching someone you love carry things that would break most people, and you need support as well.
You need to understand what cumulative trauma looks like, how hypervigilance affects home life, why your usually emotionally available partner might seem distant after certain shifts and how to deal with that. We help loved ones find routine, purpose, and thrive in their critical roles.
Hear from first responders' spouses
“They are never off duty. When we are in crowds, they are anxious. When we are seated in church, they have to sit where there is a quick escape. When we are at dinner, they have to sit facing the exit. When we are at family functions, they will still answer their phone because someone may need them. Family outside of our home does not understand the magnitude of their job and the effects it has on their spouse and children. They are always protectors, but sometimes we don't understand why.
No one trains the spouses and children. I think that being the spouse of a trooper is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but one of my proudest aspects of our relationship. I wish that there were more resources for families. We don't support one another enough. It is almost looked at as a 'just deal with it and figure it out' situation and it shouldn't be this way. No one prepares spouses for when your trooper arrives home after that bad call.
Him seeking professional mental health support definitely helped our marriage. It has opened the line of communication for us. We know how to deal with certain situations better now because of this. Don't wait until something happens or someone notices that you have changed.”
“Beginning with months away from me and our young boys, while training in the academy, this career pulled us away from each other immediately. I realized quickly the loyalty to this agency would force separation between us and that didn’t mean just physically. The statistics are staggering, and we learned early that marriages don’t often last in law enforcement.
In growing my relationship with other trooper wives, the stories were always the same. This job took pieces of our spouses that could and would never be reclaimed. The camaraderie shared at the detachment was one that could not be penetrated. Long and inadequately staffed shifts, little sleep, poor management, dealing with the worst parts of humanity day after day, year after year, takes a toll. Burnt out and seeking any way to cope with the challenges and pain the job brings along with it, this environment has the potential to tear a family apart and for some it did.
In time, I began losing my husband. My kids were losing their dad. Distance began to build. The enormity of the circumstance we found ourselves in was too much to bear. We couldn’t find our way back...he made the choice to fight for our family in a way he had never known. I held my breath when he returned home from his first visit stating he sat down and said to his therapist, 'If I don’t think this is working then I’m leaving.'
But, each week he’d come home a little more calm, a little more gracious with himself, a little bit more confident that this may have been the right choice. He was open to exploring this new way of dealing with all he had gone through. I had no doubt there was improvement. Slowly I’d see small glimmers of the man that had disappeared from our home. Broken, wounded, barely hanging on, but week by week showing up to do the HARD work to restore what had been lost made all the difference in our marriage and in our family. This was not a short journey. Long, grueling, and sometimes just going through the motions until another breakthrough was met, this was a marathon.
Understanding and having compassion for the way trauma rewires the brain was instrumental in the success on this healing journey. I often wonder, 'How is this kind of therapy not a mandatory and regular part of every detachment in the US?' It could have been too late for us. If I hadn’t had a husband willing to put away his pride and preconceived notions about therapy, where would we be? In my opinion, it shouldn’t be an option. I believe it helped change the trajectory of my husband’s life and ultimately the potentially impending downfall of our family.
This story could have ended in even more tragedy and trauma, but, by the grace of God, healing and restoration took place instead. It was as simple as reaching out to someone trained to deal with trauma and leading us out of the darkness that God never intended us to stay in. It was an honorable and wise choice that was made to seek help in this way and by doing so it kept our entire family from being consumed by the unavoidable darkness.”
Emergency responder cultural competence model
Begin Counseling recognizes the unique nature of public safety professions. Our counseling process is tailored to comprehensively address the impacts of emergency service careers from training to retirement. Our team of culturally competent therapists are specifically trained and equipped to come alongside first responders and their families.
We're a first responder trauma counseling in-network provider for Blue Cross Blue Shield, PEIA (WV), and Peak Health insurances and a non-network Tricare Certified Provider.