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Podcast weblog: A career in law enforcement is one of the most rewarding, challenging, and selfless professions out there. The Guns and Yoga podcast explores the intersection between the impact a first responder career can have on those on the job, their families, and the importance of adopting and maintaining a holistic lifestyle. Wendy Hummell is a seasoned law enforcement officer in the Midwest with close to 25 years experience. She is a LEO spouse, mother, and wellness enthusiast. She knows first-hand the difficulties this line of work can bring. For the past decade, Wendy has been exploring various ways to improve her emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical well – being. She continues to learn and has a passion for sharing these tools to improve the quality of life not only for herself and her family, but for all first responders. Wendy is a certified yoga and meditation instructor. She teaches yoga, mindfulness, and resiliency to first responders at her current agency where she works as the Health and Wellness Coordinator. She also teaches throughout the state of Kansas and other national platforms. Wendy retired from the Wichita Police Department in 2019 at the rank of Detective where she spent a majority of her career working persons crimes. The intention of this podcast is to add value, provide support, and share resources by providing a platform for honest conversations with first responders, family members, retirees, and wellness experts. Whether you are a law enforcement officer, work in corrections, dispatch, Fire, EMS, The Prosecutors Office, the Coroners Officer, are a member of the military, family member or anyone who supports front line workers, please subscribe today and hear hear the stories of these brave men and women, the challenges and difficulties they have faced; the wonderful programs, people, and resources available to support first responders.
Episodes
Saturday Nov 18, 2023
Saturday Nov 18, 2023
Welcome to the Guns and Yoga Podcast. My name is Wendy Hummell.
Before we get into today’s episode, I’d like to share a few things with all of you:
- I will be presenting a couple of free webinars on Justice Clearinghouse. For those of you that don't know, Justice Clearinghouse is a peer-to-peer educational platform geared towards CJ professionals.
- On December 8th, I will be presenting “Building a Wellness Program from the Ground Up”. It is free to watch live, and if you are Justice Clearinghouse member you can access the replay anytime. Please see the link below.
- The December webinar will be an overview of what it takes to implement an organizational wellness program from the ground up. If this is something you are interested to learn more about, I will be releasing a longer course on the Justice Clearinghouse platform early next year, so stay tuned.
- Also, I recently presented a webinar on Justice Clearinghouse called “Side Hustles and Second Careers: Reimagining your Professional Passion After Retirement”, and as a part of the Second Mountain Master class series, which focuses on retirement I will be breaking down the sections of this webinar in future microcasts and will incorporate additional content, so stay tuned.
- We recently did a giveaway for a guns and yoga hat. Thank you to all that entered and joined the email list, and congratulations to the winner - Katherine Boyle. .
Now on to today’s episode where I share a conversation with David Kennington, the Manager for the Professional Wellness Section at the Nashville Metro Police Department. David is a licensed professional counselor and manages civilian counselors and the sworn arm of the wellness unit.
Not only is David a trailblazer in the first responder wellness space, but he has come to be a trusted mentor and friend. We met a few years back when I was early into my role as the Health and Wellness Manager at my agency. Through a program called CRITAC, which we discuss in the episode, our agency was paired with David’s along with another subject matter expert, Sherri Martin, National FOP Wellness Coordinator, who was a previous guest on the show.
David and I continue to stay connected and he has been an integral part of our wellness programs success. Because of his guidance, an unexpected benefit of our relationship through the CRITAC program, which included site visits, was our own unit’s expansion. We were able to go from one full time person, me, to now three full time employees in our unit, one of which is an in-house therapist. This not only speaks to the legitimacy of the program, but to our agency’s leadership and buy in, a crucial element for any agency wellness program I also discuss in my upcoming webinar, Building a Wellness Program from the Ground Up.
Some of the highlights from our conversation are:
- The growth of his agency’s wellness program, which began with the behavioral component, or in house therapists to the recent addition of the sworn section, wellness checks, training, peer support, family support, succession planning, and the importance of having a menu of services to offer employees.
- David shares the core values of the Nashville Metro PD’s wellness program: Relationships, resources, and resiliency.
Whether you are interested in how to start a wellness program at your agency, enhance what you already have, or you are just interested to learn more, I think you’ll find a lot of great information and value in this episode.
If you found value, please share and give us a review. As always, if you have questions, feedback, or an idea for a future episode topic, email me at wendy@bluelineyoga.com and register to receive our upcoming free guns and yoga newsletter coming in 2024. You can sign up on the link included below.
And remember, we are better together.
LINKS:
Building a Wellness Program from the Ground Up
Side Hustles and Second Careers: Reimagining Your Professional Passion after Retirement
Nashville Police Department Professional Wellness Section
Collaborative Reform Initiative Technical Assistance Center (CRI-TAC)
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