Culturally Competent Therapist...Is That Even a Thing?

Summary

In this episode, Kimberly Ingram, a certified first responder therapist, discusses the importance of cultural competency when working with first responders. She emphasizes the need for therapists to understand the unique challenges and experiences of first responders and to provide a safe and supportive environment for them. Kimberly also highlights the role of faith in her work and how it has helped her navigate the difficulties of being a law enforcement spouse. Additionally, she shares information about the organization How to Love Our Cops, which focuses on supporting and empowering law enforcement spouses.

Takeaways

• Cultural competency is crucial in therapy for first responders, as therapists need to understand the unique stressors and complications that come with being a first responder.
• Many first responders are hesitant to seek therapy due to fears of being diagnosed or labeled, so it's important for therapists to create a safe and non-judgmental environment.
• Faith can play a significant role in providing comfort and support for both therapists and their clients in the first responder community.
• How 2 Love Our Cops is an organization that focuses on educating, empowering, and equipping law enforcement spouses to thrive in their relationships and families.

Wellspring Mental Health Group

Wellspring Mental Health Group-IG

Kim Ingram-LinkedIn

How 2 Love Our Cops

How 2 Love Our Cops-IG

How 2 Love Our Cops-Home Watch Conference 

Transcript

Critical Aspects Podcast (00:00.627)
Alright, welcome back to critical aspects of law enforcement. I'm your host Vernon Phillips and today we are joined with Kim Ingram So Kim is a first responder therapist and she's been doing a lot of good work and I'm gonna turn it over her and let her introduce herself just who she is a little bit about of her background and What she's doing right now for our first responder. So Kim, I appreciate you coming on. So thank you for taking the time
 
Kimberly Ingram (00:24.42)
No problem. So I'm Kim Ingram. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in the state of Florida. I'm also a certified first responder counselor. I've been doing this for about eight years now. I went back to school kind of late in life. I was a stay at home mom for 20 or so years when our youngest boys, when they got into high school, I decided to go back to school to be a therapist.
 
I own a private practice in New Smyrna Beach. We have two locations and a total of 10 therapists that work for us. I guess the more important part of my background is I was married to or am, I am married to a law enforcement officer. He just retired after 26 years in law enforcement. And prior to that, he did five years as an EMT. So he's got a quite a long history of public safety. I also have a son who's seven years on the job now in law enforcement as well. So I have quite an extensive background with law enforcement and first responders.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (01:38.483)
Well, that's good, I mean, because that's also very important. So there's a couple of things there I want to touch on. One is you might have to kind of get with Nate and kind of clarify that first initial statement there. But I'm sure he's going to be OK. So you've been doing this the last eight years. And from what it sounds like, it sounds like because you were a stay -at -home mom and raising
 
Kimberly Ingram (01:49.348)
You
 
Kimberly Ingram (01:56.836)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
 
Kimberly Ingram (02:01.732)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (02:06.835)
Your kids that made you say, hey, I need to go and help other people because it's been too much.
 
Kimberly Ingram (02:13.924)
Right, so once the kids got bigger, I homeschooled for a long, long time as part of that. And once the kids got bigger, it's funny because my husband, Nate, he joked that he worked the first 20 years of our marriage and the next 20 years was my job. So I went back to school and I've always, since I was in high school, I've always wanted to be a therapist.
 
Originally, I thought I wanted to work with cancer kids. And as I got older, I realized, no, I don't think that's for me. I think that's going to be a little bit too much. So once I got out of my student internship and had graduated, I turned my focus kind of to the first responder realm for lots of reasons. But the main one was I've seen the effects of the job on many, many different officers and responders throughout the years. And even kind of close to home, just with some incidents that happened in Nate's career, some things that happened in my son's career when he was very early on the job. And with a cousin of mine who was in his own line of duty shooting as well.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (03:41.011)
Yeah, so when we talk about certain, so you're certified first responder therapist, right? So why is that important?
 
Kimberly Ingram (03:47.524)
Mm -hmm.
 
So that starts a conversation about cultural competency. Yeah.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (03:55.091)
Yes, yes. Why is it important for therapists to be culturally competent when they work with first responders, especially, I mean, I'm gonna focus on law enforcement, I'm gonna focus on cops, and I mean, that's, I mean, that's all of your family, that's their, you know, their main career focus, but that's also, I mean, that's where I'm at, that's where primarily you work with, you know, a lot of cops. So,
 
Kimberly Ingram (04:07.812)
Sure.
 
Kimberly Ingram (04:21.54)
Yes.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (04:23.123)
So why is that important? Why is being culturally competent with that culture important when it comes to being a therapist and providing that resource?
 
Kimberly Ingram (04:33.412)
So I think it starts with a definition of what cultural competency is, right? You know, so, cause a lot of people don't understand what in the world does that mean? That sounds like a lot of therapists talk. For me, I think the easiest definition for cultural competency is that you understand the unique stressors, complications, highs, lows, things like that, that come with a particular
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (04:41.939)
Hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (05:02.884)
Culture, whether we're talking about like an ethnic type culture or whether we're talking about a specific career culture, which we all know and understand that law enforcement is definitely their own culture. There's a lot of things that are very unique about being a law enforcement officer, law enforcement family, spouse, child, that kind of thing. So cultural competency
 
When working with law enforcement officers becomes very important. I think in the simplest way of explaining is our officers see all kinds of things and most of it is not positive. They spend their days going to people in their worst situations or their worst possible day ever. And for them to be able to offload that they need to be able to go talk to a therapist who when they talk about some of those things that therapist isn't going to be traumatized themselves. Start crying, run out of the room, tell them, I can't see you, because you and I both know sometimes we only get a one and done situation to get an officer in a therapy office.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (06:18.739)
Yep, absolutely. And that's the thing, I think that's one of the biggest things is because of the amount of trauma that law enforcement incur on their lives throughout their career. I mean, it could be depending on just the shift in the tour of duty, I mean, they could be exposed to half a dozen to a dozen critical incidents just in a three day period. So when you start talking about going in and then offloading that, or downline that with a therapist, like you said, that's important because if you go in and you start laying all this stuff out, two things are gonna happen. Either you're gonna completely overwhelm the therapist, right? It's not culturally competent, or don't understand law enforcement, or they're gonna step back and be like, okay, we need to reevaluate you and where you're at. When all they wanna do is just go in and say, ugh, right? They just kinda wanna dump.
 
Kimberly Ingram (07:01.444)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (07:15.844)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (07:17.235)
And if if it's the therapist isn't culturally competent to understand law enforcement the law enforcement officer and that some you know They just they need to go somewhere where they can express and share the things that they've seen in a way that is is Therapeutic for them and gets them to kind of exhaust those emotions that are tied to it They have to be able to hear that and allow that to not then impact them right but
 
Kimberly Ingram (07:35.396)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (07:45.828)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (07:46.707)
Than to be able to understand like, all right, look, they're just sharing. It doesn't mean that they're crazy, right? I mean, case in point, we had an individual that I just kind of pointed your way not too long ago after they called me and they're like, you know somebody that's culturally competent because I just went to this one place and I seriously thought she was gonna, I thought the people were gonna be waiting for me, put me in a straight jacket and take me to the cuckoo house.
 
Kimberly Ingram (07:53.284)
Right, right, for sure.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (08:16.627)
And all I'm doing is just trying to talk about some of the things I've seen at work. That's a real concern for a lot of cops. If they go in there and if I talk about the things I've seen or the things that are bothering me, that they're automatically going to cut me and say, you're not fit for duty. I mean, I think that's a huge factor. So I think that's why we've got a lot of law enforcement that don't say anything. And they internalize, they push it down, and they...
 
Kimberly Ingram (08:23.972)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (08:34.564)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (08:40.644)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (08:45.555)
They take it and they stow it, stuff it, and throw it, and then they just keep moving forward. You and I both know that that's only going to last for so long until all of that comes up. It's not just one at a time. Generally, it all comes up at once. So what is you being a certified first responder therapist, being culturally competent, what is something that you do to keep yourself
 
Kimberly Ingram (08:49.508)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (09:15.539)
You know, I guess just keep yourself guarded or protected so that when they come in and sit down and share these things with you, it doesn't affect you, right? That you can actually effectively help them walk through that without it really impacting you. Because we know that every time we sit there and we talk to somebody or you counsel somebody, that there's some residual there that rubs off. It doesn't matter how resilient we are.
 
Kimberly Ingram (09:39.972)
Sure.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (09:44.339)
When that happens, there's some takeaway. So what do you do to keep yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually grounded and healthy?
 
Kimberly Ingram (10:00.443)
So I think what I talk with most of my clients about is self -care and sleep. Those are the two biggest things. All of my clients would tell you that on a weekly basis when they come in, I check in and say, so how's your sleep been this week and what's your self -care been like? It's important and most first responders, if you pulled a room of a hundred cops,
 
Right? And you said, who in here gets good sleep? You'll be real lucky if you have one, maybe two hands that actually go up because they're not ever educated. Like we don't teach in our academies. Hey, you can get good sleep and still do this job. There's just certain things you have to do to make that happen. And then on the self care aspect of it, you know, you ask a hundred cops, what do you do for self care? I go to the range.
 
That's not self care, right? It's a whole other explanation of trying to help people understand you need to figure out what turns off that hamster wheel that we kind of all have running in our head and do more of that when you're off duty. So for me, taking care of myself becomes what do I do for self care? What do I do to get good sleep?
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (10:59.347)
Thank you.
 
Kimberly Ingram (11:26.34)
And then on top of that, especially being a therapist, knowing when I need to go and talk to a therapist myself, because it's something we're trained to do in school when we're in our counseling programs, is that sometimes therapists need their own therapist. And it's for me to be able to go and not share all the things I'm hearing, but me to be able to go, okay.
 
I'm feeling some kind of way and I just need help kind of figuring out why this is stuck. And usually that has something to do with like what I've been through in my personal life. So staying on top of those three things are probably the biggest things that I do.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (12:14.579)
Yeah, and that's important. I mean, so I think that's great that you talk about like self -care for yourself, but also, you know, we also talk a lot about self -care for the individual officer. And I constantly preach, you know, self -care myself, even though I will admit that sometimes I'm not the best at it. And, you know, on our sidebar conversations, you know, sometimes you call me out on that, which I appreciate.
 
But I mean, just this past week, I went and I sit with the counselor myself, right? And they challenged me and asked me hard questions. And there was one the other day that left me really thinking like, I never really thought about that. Because even on a personal level, there's things that we dive into like, hey, why do you like, and I know all this and you know all this when you go in and sit down with somebody else. So we know kind of the way that the conversation is going to go and some of the questions to kind of draw out some more information. And it's funny because even for myself, I go there and I sit there and I'm like, like I know this, but I'm still like, but I still have to share it. If that makes sense. So, you know, kind of talking through just my, the way I was brought up and why I, you know, I do certain things the way that I do them. It's like, okay, so then she says, well, so what's...
 
Kimberly Ingram (13:13.188)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (13:38.195)
Do you want your kids to learn from you? As far as some of these aspects we were talking about and we were just talking about giving and just being very missional with other people and just kind of a work ethic and how do you want your kids to kind of grow up with this idea of serving others and work imprinted on them? Because that's exactly what happens.
 
Kimberly Ingram (13:41.188)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (14:05.252)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (14:07.731)
I went home that night and I talked to Laurie and I brought that up and she was like, I never thought about that. I'm like, yeah, I didn't either. So it's good. So even for myself and for you, it's good to go in there and to kind of get those conversations stirred sometimes because then it gives us the ability to kind of step back and be like, okay, I don't have to be 110 % all the time and always just
 
Kimberly Ingram (14:18.116)
Yeah.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (14:38.166)
Full on going, going, going because you're teaching your kids, especially if you're in law enforcement and you are working, you know, over time, you know, boo -goos of over time, right? And like you are instilling that, you were teaching your kids, right, that this is, you know, for one, this is acceptable and that this is what we do.
 
Kimberly Ingram (14:51.716)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (15:02.724)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (15:06.707)
This is the type of work motivation or work ethic that we have and you know being and having a good work ethic and working hard is not That's not what's in question here, right? It's learning that balance and being able to kind of pump the brakes and step back and like, okay Where am I at right now? You know, how is this affecting me, you know, physically mentally emotionally spiritually. How am I you know? Because like we have to understand that it's checks and balances, right? we
 
Kimberly Ingram (15:33.732)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (15:35.059)
We can't just be always withdrawing and not depositing into ourselves. Because what happens if you're using your bank account and you're not putting anything in there, but you're continuing to use your bank card, eventually you're going to overdraft. And you overdraft because there's not enough funds in there to cover what you're buying. So it's the same thing with us as individuals, right? If we are not investing in ourselves and taking that time to say, hey, whoa, and invest into us, right, to deposit into us,
 
Kimberly Ingram (15:39.204)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (15:48.196)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (16:04.627)
Eventually, we're going to deplete the resources and we're going to have insufficient funds. When we start looking at law enforcement, what do you think that right now, just in the law enforcement community, what is something that the law enforcement community is doing well? As far as their individuals, their officers and their deputies and things like that, what do you think that just as a general broad
 
Kimberly Ingram (16:08.74)
Right.
 
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (16:32.947)
Spectrum, what is law enforcement doing well? When it comes to the person, wellness, and just really focusing on the individual.
 
Kimberly Ingram (16:44.356)
I think that we're starting to see a shift because what I call old dog cops, so that's you, that's my husband, you know, that's our older generation. You know, that's our old school cops, right? That mentality of we're fine, I'm good, nothing bothers me, I'm 10 feet tall and bulletproof, right? You wear your little superhero cape and...
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (16:54.195)
Whoa, hold on now.
 
Kimberly Ingram (17:13.86)
You're great.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (17:15.283)
I've never said I'm fine to you ever.
 
Kimberly Ingram (17:18.372)
True, that's true.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (17:22.315)
I may have said it the other day.
 
Kimberly Ingram (17:25.412)
Yeah, that mentality is starting to shift and we're definitely seeing more command staff at least turn and take a look at, okay, wait a minute. Maybe we're not serving our officers well in the mental health aspect. It's a slow turn. Nothing's happening quickly, but
 
In the past, there hasn't even been a look in that direction. And unfortunately, I think part of what is making people start to look at that is we have very high rates of officer suicide right now. We're having very high rates of line of duty death, things like that, just because of the climate of our nation. And I think that in itself is forcing admin and others to go, wait a minute, we're not taking good care of our officers. So we really need to look at that.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (18:35.219)
Yeah. So with that, what do you think is something that could be done better in the law enforcement community? So when we start looking at just training, onboarding, academy, in -service training, what do you think is something that we could do better?
 
Kimberly Ingram (18:57.54)
Well, I think that it...
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (18:58.995)
I know it's kind of a broad question, but it's also kind of a loaded question, so I understand that.
 
Kimberly Ingram (19:05.22)
Yeah.
 
So I think from the starting point, we have to kind of normalize mental health therapy for our officers. And when I say from the get -go, I mean in our academies. So over here at Daytona State at our College of Emergency Services, they have me come in at the end, towards the end of every academy, and I get it four to five hours to spend in front of these cadets right before they graduate. And I kind of do an overview of, okay, here's some things that are gonna come up in your career as far as mental health and wellness. But I also sit down and talk with these, I call them kids, because they all look like they're so young. But I sit down with these kids and I talk to them about, here's what it looks like when you actually come see a culturally competent clinician. From the very first time you contact me to actually sitting in my office for a session and I kind of take away some of that fear and anxiety and those unknowns of, okay, what exactly is a therapist going to do if I walk in the room and when I leave, are they going to immediately pick up a phone and call my department? You and I know that's not how it works, but
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (20:29.203)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's the fear.
 
Kimberly Ingram (20:32.484)
Most people don't know that. And they assume because of this culture that we're shifting away from that if somebody comes to see me, somehow their department is gonna find out, or I'm actually going to call and report to the department. So on the academy level, I think bringing in culturally competent clinicians, first of all, to teach the mental health portion.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (20:58.771)
Hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (20:59.172)
And second of all, just to take away some of that fear would be important. I think that from an in service perspective, we need to have clinicians, culturally competent clinicians teaching mental health and wellness and educating about PTSD and trauma and all those kinds of things, instead of either ignoring it, which some departments are doing, or having, like I said, the crusty old dog cop go in there and go, hey, this is what PTSD is and moving on. So I think there's a lot of things. I think that we're starting to see more attention being paid to actual critical incidents and trying to navigate those in a healthy way within departments you know, I was just in a training and one of the things that was so important to me at that training was they actually said, Hey, when we do these debriefings, we really need to have a mental health clinician present. And I think that's something that a lot of our departments don't recognize and choose not to do. And there's a lot of mental health clinicians out here who are culturally competent that would be more than happy to be part of those, but we're just not being invited.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (22:33.971)
Yeah, I mean, and there's a lot there. So, I mean, so what you're saying, I'm glad that that's what they're doing. They're giving you that opportunity to share and to talk about that from, you know, from a therapist standpoint so that they can begin to have some education like, hey, it's okay to come in and sit down and talk to somebody. And it's not like you're going to leave, I'm going to pick up the phone. So.
 
Kimberly Ingram (22:57.924)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (22:59.571)
You know, I'm pretty fortunate, you know, with where I work, did they give me the opportunity to do that with, with our new recruits or our new hires that come in and we are able to kind of go through, you know, some of the critical aspects of law enforcement, right? That the areas that, that, that change within themselves, because, you know, statistically, you know, after, within the first five years, that, that young officer, that new officer is not going to be the same individual they were when they started. It's just.
 
Kimberly Ingram (23:26.82)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (23:28.691)
The profession changes you. Now it's up to you as the individual how much you allow it to change you. I mean naturally, and you know this, it's going to change you, but it doesn't mean that you're going to end up being the salty old dog or the crusty old FTO. But with, like you said, the education and the training and just the
 
Kimberly Ingram (23:47.236)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (23:56.947)
Bringing the awareness to hey look it's okay to kind of offload this stuff before it becomes a problem you know that gives them the ability to you to continue progressing forward and to have a you know a nice long successful career. So when I want to kind of jump into real quick so you said you know you educate them on hey what it looks like when when they come in so if a law enforcement officer comes to see you what what can they expect?
 
What's kind of the the process so?
 
Kimberly Ingram (24:29.956)
So with me, you know, initially they usually get a phone number from somebody because I, my client load, I'm probably about 95 % first responders in my client load. And I'd say 80 % of those are word of mouth where one cop is told another cop, Hey, I know a girl. You should go talk to her.
 
So I usually get a text message. Law enforcement officers don't call and leave me a voicemail. That's part of being culturally competent and understanding that they're not going to do that. That they would much rather text me and say, hey, I need an appointment and get them scheduled via text. Another thing that is kind of unique to my office, and I can't swear that every culturally competent clinician does this, but
 
I have two waiting areas in my office. I have the one that when you walk right in the door, there's seats right there in the lobby. But I also have an area in the back that is we kind of use for a group room area, but it's also a waiting area with a couch and a comfy chair. And, you know, our law enforcement can come in and sit and face the door so they know all the things that are happening in the office.
 
But that's where every single one of my cops goes. They all go sit in the back because they're much more comfortable with it. They don't have to worry about, you know, sitting across the lobby from somebody they arrested or they wrote a ticket the day before. I also, I don't take insurance, which a lot of times can be a hang up for our law enforcement officers.
 
I have a special rate for all my first responders that is definitely affordable on a cop's salary. And all of that kind of goes into that being culturally competent and understanding those really unique intricacies of a law enforcement officer's life. Cops don't really trust insurance because they feel like it goes and it can get back to the agency.
 
Kimberly Ingram (26:44.292)
So I don't even mess with insurance. Another reason I don't mess with insurance is when you take insurance, they want you to diagnose somebody after that first session. I don't have to diagnose anyone. If a law enforcement officer comes to me and he or she is just struggling with the day -to -day of the job and maybe they've had a few junkie calls, but they come see me for six months and...
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (26:57.459)
Hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (27:12.42)
Process some stuff and work through it and then they're good again. I don't have to put a diagnosis on that. We come in and talk about some stuff and then they go on their way.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (27:22.867)
And that's enough.
 
Yeah, and I think that's huge, especially in the first responder law enforcement community is a lot of them do not want to go and sit with a therapist or go to counseling because they're afraid that they're going to get a diagnosis. They're going to get branded with something because that's exactly what they feel it is. I just got tagged with something that I can't ever get rid of.
 
Kimberly Ingram (27:46.82)
Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (27:56.787)
No matter the amount of work that I put in, this is always going to be branded on me even though that's not true, right? Because so many of the things that they struggle with is...
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:04.42)
Right, it's not.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (28:12.852)
Is all manageable. Right? It's all manageable. It's all things that can be done and worked through. But they just don't have that understanding because they've never been told that. They've always just been told like, hey, suck it up, go do your job, just don't worry about it. Or they're like, hey, going back to some of the old salty dogs, right, a lot of them, they self -medicate. And there's lots of different ways that people self -medicate, but especially in the first responder community, it always comes back to what?
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:15.14)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:23.972)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:36.516)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (28:42.579)
They all like to do a little alcohol, right? Because what does it do? It kind of numbs it. So yeah, it's a coping mechanism, but it's not a healthy coping mechanism. And that's why I tell them all the time, I said, look, you might be self -medicating with alcohol and it might kind of squash things for that night or depending on how much you self -medicate, it might make things worse.
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:42.66)
Alcohol. Yeah.
 
Kimberly Ingram (28:57.028)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (29:12.548)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (29:12.563)
If you result in doing something stupid. But it doesn't alleviate the problem because the next day you wake up and you feel like garbage and your problem is still there. It's still there. So all you've done is just you've masked it for a little bit of time and then also like if you're using alcohol to sleep, that's not an effective way to get good sleep because statistically you're not going to get good sleep. You might fall asleep for a couple hours but then what happens when it wears off?
 
Kimberly Ingram (29:23.204)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (29:35.236)
Mm hmm. Right.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (29:42.931)
Now I'm wide awake at three o 'clock in the morning. I don't get back to sleep So that's that's important. I think it's important for them to understand and know like when they come in like hey What it looks like and especially when you would 95 % of your clientele are first responders So that should tell you right there that most of the individuals almost all the individuals see our first responders, which means They're everybody else It's in your in your people group
 
Kimberly Ingram (29:44.58)
Yep, you can't get back to sleep. Yeah.
 
Kimberly Ingram (30:06.724)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (30:12.627)
That are coming there and getting the same type of service and you're not at risk of running into somebody that you may have arrested or you've dealt with on the streets. And so that's what's important and that's what makes it different when somebody is culturally competent. Because if they're culturally competent and like, hey, this is the people group that I work with and this is my specific target group, that's what you're gonna see. You're gonna see high numbers.
 
Kimberly Ingram (30:32.356)
Sure.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (30:42.451)
Of that group in lower margins of others because that's what's important. That's the thing about being culturally competent is you understand like, hey, if I say I'm culturally competent but only 30 % of my clients are first responders and then 70 % is just a mixture, I don't know if we can say that you're actually culturally competent.
 
Kimberly Ingram (31:07.78)
Yeah. And another important part of that is, you know, obviously I have a, that high number that are, and a lot of them are in person, even though I do both telehealth and in person, I've found that law enforcement typically don't do well with telehealth. but some do it. but I'm very careful and I'm aware when I'm scheduling my week out and I'm scheduling clients that I don't put to.
 
New Smyrna Beach police officers back to back. Like they may tell me, I don't care who knows, but I'll schedule them apart or on different days or, you know, and sometimes that gets hard as the therapist, but it's important because I know how important confidentiality and trust and rapport building is with this culture. you know, I don't expect.
 
I don't expect law enforcement officers on the second session to tell me all of their struggles. It takes much longer than that to build trust with a cop because they don't trust anybody. I get a little bit of buy -in by being a cop's wife, but not too much. So it takes a long time. And I understand that we have to process some of the lighter things.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (32:14.899)
Yeah.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (32:25.459)
Yeah.
 
Kimberly Ingram (32:32.644)
Before we're gonna get to the deeper issues and struggles that they may be facing.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (32:38.771)
Yeah, so on average, what kind of is just for you, what have you seen for yourself, the timeframe that it takes for that cop to really get that buy in and be comfortable and say, okay, you're okay, you're legit.
 
Kimberly Ingram (32:56.068)
So some of it depends upon how they've come to me. you know, if I get a referral, say from you and they don't know anything about me other than you said, Hey, I got this therapist. You should call her. Right. She's culturally competent. I trust her. Give her a call. That can take me two, sometimes three months before we're able to really kind of dig deep.
 
The ones that come to me by word of mouth, where one cop is telling the other cop, hey, I've been going to her for the last year. She's helped me with all these things. This is so much better for me now. Those, it takes a little bit less time because they walk in with a little bit of buy -in because their zone partner told them, hey, she's legit.
 
The other thing that has worked out really great for me is my kid, he's actually advertising for his mom. And some of the people I've gotten where he's referred to me, that time is even less because they're like, well, this is his mom. So it works, you know, I have a shorter timeframe to try and build that trust. So, and then we have some that,
 
I could see them for a year and they still don't fully trust me.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (34:26.634)
Yeah, so and I'll say this and you can yell at me later for sharing this but you know I referred you know several individuals to you and there's one that that loves to refer to you as the wizard so I'll just put that out there so all of y 'all can can can take that for how you want. Like I said you can yell at me later for putting that out there but I wanted to plug that in there because it's you know I think that's important when we start talking about
 
Kimberly Ingram (34:42.116)
Yes.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (34:56.051)
Cultural competency because if you've got somebody who's potentially a salty old dog, right, who's got that, hey, I'm Superman, I'm Iron Man, I'm whatever, I'm the guy that holds it all together, but then they refer to you as the wizard, that's a pretty big compliment. And I think that that's pretty significant of just...
 
Kimberly Ingram (35:04.196)
Right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (35:10.916)
Yep.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (35:24.403)
Telling of who you are as a therapist and just the ability you have to understand and then work well with the culture. So I think that's very important. So what's your primary modality of treatment? So what's your kind of your go -to when we're start dealing with first responders in general?
 
Kimberly Ingram (35:47.428)
So for me, I use, technically the term would be eclectic, an eclectic approach where I combine several different modalities. I do cognitive behavioral therapy. I do motivational interviewing because that's always fun to use on cops because they all know how to use it, but they don't realize I'm doing it to them.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (36:16.243)
Yeah.
 
Kimberly Ingram (36:17.22)
That's always fun. I do some, I just lost it. For PTSD type symptoms and treatment, I use cognitive processing theory for PTSD, which is a specific treatment plan that is kind of based out of talk therapy. There's a lot of modalities out there that work with first responders.
 
I don't stand back and say that, you know, my combination of what I use is the only way to go. And this is going to get me on my soapbox and you know that you opened it wide up for that. But I think kind of where some of our mental health treatment for first responders is going wrong is a lot of times we hear people say, okay, this particular modality is the best way to go.
 
And Nate and I were talking about this last weekend is the problem with that is that what works for you, Vern, may not work for the next guy. And if we're saying, okay, you know, I'll use what I use CPT for your PTSD is the only thing that's going to work for you. It's the best treatment. It's evidence -based, all these things. And then you go do that and it doesn't work.
 
Typically that cop is going to go, well, there's something wrong with me because this is supposed to work for everybody and it didn't. And that's
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (37:54.067)
Yeah, so you're dealing in an absolute, you're saying this is an absolute.
 
Kimberly Ingram (37:57.988)
Right. So I come from a standpoint where I say, hey, you know, on my slide that I teach from, I have, I think five different first responder modalities that are evidence -based that work. And I say, you know, CPT may not be for you. Maybe EMDR is for you. Maybe brain spotting is for you have to be open enough to understand that this one may not work and we may not have to try something different.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (38:37.587)
Yeah, I think that's important because like I said, I mean when you make that statement, you're like, hey, this is a, it may be, you know, evidence driven, like, hey, this is like, it's proven and it's like, yes, it is, but that doesn't mean that that's always gonna work with every single individual, which is why we've got several different modalities of treatment that are available that people can get trained in and certified in. That's why there's so many different ones. I mean,
 
Kimberly Ingram (39:00.1)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (39:07.059)
I mean, shoot, you've got it, like you said, anywhere from CPT to EMDR to art therapy to music therapy to, you know, I mean, there's all kinds. So I think it's important now for therapists, there might be one that you particularly do well or that you found to be rather effective with your clients as you've gone through.
 
Kimberly Ingram (39:15.876)
Yeah, there's so much.
 
Kimberly Ingram (39:33.38)
Mm -hmm.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (39:35.347)
That doesn't mean there might not be somebody that comes through and you're like, okay, so I've kind of used several different modalities, but like, all right, well, let's kind of explore some other options because like you said, what works for me might not work for everybody else. And that's kind of like when we start talking about critical incident traumatic events, because everybody's like, well, we need to define what a critical incident traumatic event is. We need to put it on, and we can for the most part. We can do a broad definition of what it is.
 
Kimberly Ingram (40:05.028)
Sure.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (40:05.65)
But every individual is gonna respond to an incident differently. So what might be a critical or traumatic event for me might not be for you and vice versa. So you have to be able to kind of adapt and then reevaluate. But I think that's also what is important about being a, not just a culturally competent therapist, but just a competent therapist, right?
 
Kimberly Ingram (40:11.684)
Right?
 
Kimberly Ingram (40:15.812)
Sure.
 
Kimberly Ingram (40:30.852)
Sure, right. The therapist has to not be afraid to say, hey, I've tried my things and I don't see that it's really helping you. So let me help you find someone who can. And I always tell them, you know, any of my clients in that first intake session with me, I tell them, you know,
 
There may come a point where you feel like we're not making progress or maybe even at the end of this session, you just don't like the sound of my voice and you don't want to see me. Just let me know. You're not going to hurt my feelings because I'm self -aware enough to know I'm not for everyone. But let me be a part of helping you get to where you need to be because that's what's important to me. If I can't help you, I'm sure that I can find someone who can.
 
So I'm more concerned about that part of the process that I am, you know, me keeping all the clients to myself.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (41:32.595)
Yeah. And there's a couple of things I want to kind of start gravitating towards. But before we kind of shift gears here a little bit, what's, for you, being your certified first responder therapist, and that's primarily the group that you work with, if there is somebody either just kind of getting into being a therapist and wanting to provide that service to first responders,
 
What advice would you give to them?
 
Kimberly Ingram (42:05.156)
I would tell you that the first thing you need to do if you're a student intern or registered intern with the state of Florida, you need to find a supervisor who's culturally competent with that culture. And I can tell you that there's not many out there who are both because the qualified supervisor designation in Florida is something you have to go take a class for. As a therapist, you have to be licensed for five years.
 
There's all these criteria you have to meet. And so it takes a while to get those out there. Being a culturally competent first responder therapist is kind of trendy right now. There's a lot of therapists out there who are saying, yeah, I can work with first responders, but they don't have any cultural background with first responders.
 
I would caution therapists who say, yeah, this is something I want to do. If you don't have the cultural background, then you need to be out there finding all the classes for trainings. You need to be out there doing ride -alongs. You need to be out there embedding yourself in the culture before you start seeing the clients. Because if you don't, it's going to be either harmful to you or to the client. And we don't want either of those.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (43:30.899)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, and so I appreciate you taking the time to kind of explain a whole lot of things. We didn't do too bad jumping around. And I tried not to hit some of those hot button topics. We came close there for a minute, but we did. But we kind of skirted that.
 
Kimberly Ingram (43:41.796)
Sure.
 
Kimberly Ingram (43:49.604)
I'm sorry.
 
We did.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (43:56.787)
I mean, so yes, you've got your practice, but then you're also involved in some other, you know, some other groups that are specific for helping first responders, right? And one of those is how to love, how to love our cops. So explain a little bit, you know, kind of your role with them and then what, explain what how to love our cops is just so we can kind of get a little back backstory on that.
 
Kimberly Ingram (44:07.652)
Yes.
 
Kimberly Ingram (44:23.012)
So, How to Love Our Cops is a national organization that started out in Sacramento, California. The president is a lovely gal named Vicki Newman. She was, is, was, I did it again. She is married to a retired California Highway Patrol chief, Brent Newman. And she basically took a look around and went, what are we doing for our spouses?
 
And so often our law enforcement spouses are kind of on islands by themselves. We're part of the culture and we understand that our officer wants privacy and things like that. And so a lot of times spouses don't build good support networks. So with that in mind, Vicki decided to start an organization that focuses on educating, empowering, and equipping law enforcement spouses to kind of thrive, which ultimately will help the law enforcement family thrive in the culture. So my role with How to Love Our Cops is I'm the Florida State Liaison. What that means is anything that happens here in Florida that I can help encourage spouses or if we have line of duty death or
critical incidents and things like that and the spouses need something. I'm there to just offer a support network, educate them, offer resources, things like that. We also at How to Love Our Cots have a conference that gets put on. It's called Home Watch. They've done several of them out in California. They've done a few. They did one in Louisiana, one in Oklahoma.
 
And this year later on, on September 7th, we're bringing it to Florida. Claremont, Claremont police department reached out to how to deliver cops and said, Hey, we want home watch to come here. So we finally, just in the last few weeks, kind of solidified everything. And we have a date, September 7th. It's a one day conference. It's from nine to five.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (46:25.907)
All right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (46:45.956)
And that conference really focuses on that educating, empowering, and equipping the law enforcement family to just kind of thrive and be stronger in their relationships and their families.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (47:03.763)
Yeah, and I actually have that flyer, so I'm gonna put that flyer up. So, and with the flyer there is a QR code that you'll be able to scan and everything. But once I get that flyer up, I'll let Kim kind of go through and explain a little bit more what it is and what's gonna be taking place.
 
Kimberly Ingram (47:34.692)
So what you see here on the flyer is the date, the time, where it's gonna be. It's gonna be over in Claremont. And then you'll see our speakers on there. So our keynote speakers are Vicki and Brent. Vicki is the president of How to Love Our Cots. And like I said, her husband is a retired California Highway Patrol Chief, which is very cool. He's got a lot of really great stories and it's a lot of fun to spend time talking with Brent and hearing about his time with the Chippies out there in California.
 
Then you'll see my friend here, Vernon is our speaker. He's gonna talk about just marriage enrichment and how to be stronger as couples. That's kind of the focus of Vicki and Brent's portion of the program as well. And then we have Karen and Doug Monda who are also Floridians. They live down in Coco. Doug's a retired police officer. And he and Karen are gonna share their story, their personal story as a law enforcement couple and just some of the struggles that they've been through and how they're overcoming those and becoming stronger as a couple. There's lots of other things that kind of happen throughout the day. We do table discussions where we pose a question to the room and kind of have conversations that are tabled to dig a little bit deeper. We provide lunch that day. There'll be breakfast on hand.
 
And then at the end of the day, after all the speakers, we do a panel. And so all the speakers will be on that panel in the front of the room. Vernon and his wife will be on there, myself and my husband will be on that panel. And from what I understand, this time there's gonna be a QR code that day where people can click on it and they can type in questions they have for the panel.
 
There's no limit on what those questions can be. And then at the end of the day, the MC, Lori, is gonna look at those questions and pose them to the panel and various ones of us up there will answer and respond to them. So that can be a lot of fun sometimes, but it can also be very serious and tackle some of those harder questions that people have. When you look at that flyer,
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (49:36.435)
boy.
 
Kimberly Ingram (50:00.996)
I know Brent and Vicki have been married, I think close to 30 years now. Nate and I have been married for 27. Karen and Doug have been together over 10 years now, I believe. I don't know the exact number. And I know you and Laurie just celebrated what? 15 years. So that combination of years and experience, there's a lot of things that can go on in a law enforcement family in that amount of time.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (50:17.203)
15 years. 15, yeah.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (50:26.995)
Yep.
 
Yep, there sure is. So yeah, I mean, I didn't know I was even going to be there. So I'm joking. I'm joking. So yeah, so what I'll do is I'll actually I'll put that in. I'll put all that in the show notes and I'll tag that information. But I'll also tag your information as well in there the year practice and if anybody wants to reach out or maybe even set up an appointment with you, we'll get that set up so they can do that. But kind of before we start to wrap things up, so when you start looking at where you're at today and everything that you've kind of gone through in your life, but kind of the experiences you've gone through kind of led you to where you are today being a certified first responder therapist. How much has your faith played a role into where you are today.
 
Kimberly Ingram (51:30.244)
So that's a really loaded question. It is. I'm actually a preacher's kid, which I know you know. You met my dad recently. But I think for me, the faith portion of it has really come into play in my marriage and working with Nate.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (51:32.499)
It is a loaded question, you're right.
 
Kimberly Ingram (51:57.348)
We don't have completely sunshine and rainbows in our marriage. We've had hard times like everybody does. That sense of faith and direction, that spirituality kind of peace has always kept us grounded and helped us to focus back on, you know, what the priority is in our life, the priority of each other and where we should be putting each other first after our relationship with God and then for me, and this probably gets, you probably aren't expecting how deep this is fixing to get, but for me as a law enforcement spouse, I had to learn very early on that me worrying constantly about his safety and what was happening. it's not healthy for anybody, but it definitely wasn't healthy for me and it wasn't healthy for our relationship.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (52:35.987)
It's alright.
 
Kimberly Ingram (52:56.772)
So I had to do a lot of introspection at a very young age on, okay, what does God say about this? What does the Bible tell me about this? And basically the way I changed things for me was, you know, it wouldn't matter if he was on duty or at home, if it's his time for God to call him home, I'm not gonna change that.
 
So I found an incredible sense of peace and solace in that. And honestly, I can tell you that once I got that worked out, there was probably only I tell people there was only one time where he was on the job where I really worried about him. And that was after 9 -11 when they grounded a plane in his jurisdiction and he had to guard it and check it. And I was a little freaked out by that. But
 
I haven't worried about him. I've just kind of rested in the fact that I know his training ability. I know how he's a great cop. And I know that God's got him. And if it's time for him to go home, then okay, God will get me through that too. I will admit it's harder to come to that place when your kid goes into law enforcement.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (54:22.835)
That's a whole other conversation there. But yeah, I appreciate your honesty and really just kind of leaning into that question because essentially what it sounds like is you just got to the point where you're like, hey, I have to trust in God's sovereignty. Ultimately, it's all in His control. And that's a hard thing to do. That's a hard place to get to. And it takes a lot of
 
Kimberly Ingram (54:24.292)
It is.
 
Kimberly Ingram (54:39.14)
Mm -hmm.
 
Kimberly Ingram (54:48.26)
Right?
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (54:50.867)
Of spiritual growth and maturity to kind of get to that place where you can really just step back and say, okay, you know, this is all God's plan and ultimately I'm here to what? To glorify God. And that's what our lives are about. So I absolutely appreciate you sharing that. So I appreciate you taking the time to jump on and just share about yourself, share about your practice, share about
 
Kimberly Ingram (55:16.708)
Of course.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (55:19.923)
How to love our cops and just kind of give us a glimpse into what it means and what it looks like to be a culturally competent therapist working with the first responder community. And I'm going to put some of that contact information in the show notes. But if you're listening, you're somebody that's like, hey, you know what? I would definitely like to try to talk to Kim. You can reach out to me, and I can make that connection. I mean, you can reach out to her also. So other than that, I appreciate you coming on. And thank you.
 
Kimberly Ingram (55:48.58)
Of course, thank you.
 
Critical Aspects Podcast (55:49.971)
And keep working with those that serve our community. So thank you.
 
Kimberly Ingram (55:55.268)
Yeah, of course, anytime.