Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We cover topics on physical and mental healing, health, happiness, growing wealth and living wise in a world that often sabotages you.
From Health to Wealth with topics covering Cradle to Grave. We got you.
Listen on all audio podcast players like @Spotify, @Audible, @Pandora, @ApplePodcasts, @iHeartRadio or watch on @YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@HealthyHappyWiseWealthyPodcast. Connect on socials @Instagram, @Facebook, @TikTok and @LinkedIn at @HealthyHappyWiseWealthy
Website coming soon: HealthyHappyWiseWealthy.Com
Email: healthyhappywisewealthy@gmail.com
Podcast Sponsor: Full-Service IT Company @Mindiii https://www.mindiii.com
Welcome to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy, the podcast where we take
people who have lived through some fire and now want to take that light
and help guide others. I am your host, Mary Meyer. I'm so glad
you're here. I want you to step away from today feeling
like you know some things about how to heal,
about how to move forward, about how to create the life
that you want to live. Let's get started.
Today we are talking to Dr. Davena Longshore with the Cummings
foundation for Behavioral Health. This conversation went
so well that we could not stop it and so we're splitting it into two
episodes. Here is part one. Hi everybody. Welcome
back to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy. I have with us today
Dr. Davena Longshore from the
Cummings foundation for Behavioral health.
And welcome, Dr. Longshore. Thank you for being with us today.
Thank you for having me. So before we even begin
and dive in, I want to read your bio because
you have such an impressive bio. And then we're going to
jump into what the Cummings foundation is, what your work is there.
And it's. We are recording on Juneteenth, so and this is,
I know everyone doesn't get to listen on this day, but this, it's a great
day to do this and I'm so excited to do this with you today. So
thank you for doing it today even though you were in the middle of moving
and all this stuff. So, yeah, it's
always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, here's her bio. It's very impressive. Dr.
Davena Longshore is the Executive Director of Research,
operations and Development at the Cumming foundation for Behavioral health.
With a PhD in clinical psychology and a specialization in
military, police and criminal psychology, Dr.
Longshore brings a unique and deeply informed perspective to law
enforcement wellness. She also holds a Master's degree in both
psychology and computer information systems and
is currently completing her third Master's degree in Clinical
psychopharmacology. This week she's finishing that.
Her current research focuses on the efficacy of wellness programs and
policing, an area where she is helping to shape evidence based strategies
that support officer mental health resilience and long term well being.
She has over 20 years experience spanning leadership, counseling and
crisis response, including work as a critical incident
responder in a level 4 double max security facility
and as a court appointed competency examiner.
Dr. Longshore's clinical experience expertise includes trauma
informed care, neuropsychological assessment and treatment of high
stress populations. She is a member of the American Psychological association,
the American Academy of Clinical Psychology and the Society for
Criminal and police psychology. Her work bridges research and
practice, offering law enforcement agency practical data driven
solutions to. To support the mental health of those who serve.
And here she is.
Oh my gosh, thank God you got that fourth
degree, right. Right.
I keep telling people, don't let me do it again. Like
if I think about it, just say no. Did you eat
today? Are you hungry? Maybe you should eat and you'll forget about
getting another degree. Yeah, that's so
incredibly impressive. And we see some of it behind you there on the
wall too. So let's start out. Tell us a little bit
about the Cummings foundation for Behavioral Health, because I think that's probably
something most people don't know about. Right. So the
Cummings foundation for Behavioral Health was founded by
a clinical psychologist named Dr. Nicholas Cummings.
And for anyone who went to school for psychology and
read a lot of psychological history, his name
everywhere, he informed a lot of your sitting
presidents. He did psychological research that helped with the
World War II. I mean, he's published and
written over 300 books and articles.
He is the maker of the managed care model. And
that's kind of how the Cummings foundation came about.
In making the managed care model, which was kind of like your first
model for integrated care, he was paid a lot of
money and he took that money and put it to the side
for the Cummings Foundation. And so
luckily for me, when
I was solicited for the position, the family was
kind of in a place where they had this foundation. This
money was specifically for this foundation to impact
the community. And they were trying to figure out exactly
what to do with it. So his wife, who
passed about a year and six months ago, Dr.
Dorothy Cummings, she was a clinical social worker. She
saw some years ago everything going on with George Floyd
and the police and the black community
and just the community at large clashing, beginning to clash a lot
with law enforcement, law enforcement policies. And she
said, I want to help. I don't know how, but I want
to help to kind of reduce this. And
that's where the birth of our law enforcement project
came from. That's amazing. And they have both passed
at this point, but somewhat recently. Yes, yes,
yes. The Dr. Dorothy Cummings,
she passed about a year and six months. Months ago. And Dr. Nicholas
Cummings passed about six years ago. Okay, so
pretty recently. Yes. And how long have you been with them?
Two years. So I was hired
just to do research for this particular project
and within a year I was promoted to run the
organization. Yeah, you were.
And I've gotten to know you some, obviously before today and,
and Know what it a dear soul you are and how
impactful you are and will continue to be in this position.
So. And so, in addition to your ability
to research and everything you know from, from your academic
world, you also have that experience in the
supermax prison. Not super max, level four max. Am I
saying it right? Level four double max. Level four
double max. It sounds fun until we learn the
reality of it. Right. I mean, it sounds like a holiday, but
just know the opposite. I'm getting silly,
obviously. Yes, the, the complete opposite.
I mean, if you let my kids tell it, it was a nightmare for them
having to deal with me while I was working in that type of environment,
because you are working with your offenders with
your more violent
and most violent convictions. And
so in that type of environment, being a
female, being a black female,
which caused me to have a lot of issues
because most of the inmates are black and brown and
them not really experiencing a black doctor
and the officers there not really experiencing a black
doctor, not knowing what the interaction is going to be like.
There were a lot of issues, definitely a lot of issues.
A lot of gangs, you know, your major gangs, your white
supremacist gangs,
some of your worst Mexican
gangs in California, of course, you know, the Bloods, the
Crips, which actually some of those yards were actually your
nicer, calmer yards. People don't understand that
even in prison there's a culture and a cold.
And believe it or not, some of your more
organized gangs are pretty decent. You know,
they, they have a cold, like you can't hurt female
administrative staff. Those are pretty quiet
yards, actually, where there's not a lot of violence, not a
lot of riots. That's good. Yes.
But, you know, in the position I ended up
being in, so first when I came in, they
knew that one of my specialties was personality disorders, which you
see a lot of within institutions like correctional
facilities. So I was placed on a yard. And most of my
caseload was individuals with personalities disorders.
And then after seeing my skill, I was asked by the chief
of mental health to take on the position as the critical incident
responder. And in that position, it
was my job to respond to inmates when they were psychotic,
when they were suicidal, when they were
homicidal. I also was responsible
for evaluating inmates after overdoses, if they
survived. So it was a pretty intense
job. And I was working there. And then I ended up getting
recruited to work part time at another prison because they
were lacking the staff. So I was working at two different prisons.
So how long were you in doing that? Work with the
prison in California. It was
only for a year and six months.
I, I am too
empathetic for that type of system.
I am too much of the type of person who
wants to get to the root of a problem and fix it,
not just put a band aid over it. And
unfortunately, our correctional system is
not meant to rehabilitate.
It's not meant to truly help in that type of way.
It is designed to keep offenders in
there. And so
it's not designed for people to get healed. It's not designed
for them to do better. And I
just got tired of fighting that type of system because.
Because I'm completely opposite of it. I was trying
to help people get better. And those who could parole, I was trying to help
them parole. And you know, I, I never
lost a victim to suicide because not only
did I respond to the incident, but I maintain contact.
Whatever the resource was that they needed to help fix whatever
problem they had, I was making sure they had the resource,
whatever complaint they had. Sometimes it was complaints.
I was negotiating with the lieutenants and the sergeants
and the captains to get resources for them and to get
those needs met. And I was doing, in doing that, I was
fighting against the system and it was just beating me down.
Yeah, because you are very solutions driven and
just having any kind of empathy in that situation, I think would be
it's needed. But how challenging is that? Yeah,
I mean, it contributed to my success in that position
because they would
just tell me what they needed. You know, they didn't feel like they needed to
lie. They didn't feel like they needed to manipulate me. They would just tell me
what was going on because they felt like I actually cared and I
actually wanted to help them. And so I even. There
were times when there were inmates who were suicidal
and it kind of went under the radar as maybe just a drug
overdose that was attributed to them using drugs
recreationally or some type of medical sickness.
And the inmates themselves would say to these people, their,
their cellmates would say, hey, you should go see
Dr. Longshore. She could help you. So that was also
reducing our suicide rate because
everybody was like, this is the woman that if you need help, she's going to
find a way to help you. And I enjoyed that
part of it, but it
was, it was like a rat race and running around
in a circle because I would do something and then it would get undone by
the system, them. And I. I
know you said you've had some traumatic experiences from that, that
in your current position probably help you understand what the
traumatic experiences police office officers have. Yes.
Yeah. Yes. So
trying. So many. I'm trying. I'm trying
to think of one that's shareable and. And we
don't have to share any of them if you don't feel comfortable. But
I know. I mean, I think I'll just give one that's
maybe an example of. And some context
around it that's maybe an example of how I can
relate to police officers.
So that type of position,
it's level four, double max.
State of California makes you sign something and says, we won't negotiate
for your life if you're held hostage. We
get training and videos on how people set
you up and threaten your family.
And there were days when I would get alerts like,
hey, you're just leaving work. You need to take your badge off, because
this gang is looking for people from our prison, and if they find you, they're
going to kill you. So there was always that aspect of
my family, and I could be in
danger. When I first took the job, they told me, you need to move. So
I had to move to someplace outside of the city
gated community. I was living close to the sheriff
because they said, you can't live around their family members.
And right now you're currently living close to family members of
people that you're going to be treating and who are imprisoned person.
My kids had to discontinue social media use
because there was always the fear that if I made
someone upset while I was at work, they would contact their
gang or. I mean, I've. Some of my patients
included hitman hitmen for the mob.
So there was always the fear that if you make them upset,
they'll go after your family. Inside, there
was a fear of, you could get stabbed. There have been times
I've been on yards, and
I'm walking around these yards. I'm not being escorted by anyone.
It's just me. And the inmates are
just around me. And I'm walking through a yard, trying to
get through a gate, waiting for the person up in the
tower to see it, to let me through. An
inmate says to me, you were
supposed to come see me for therapy. What happened to you?
Then another inmate says, why aren't you my therapist?
And then they just. All of a sudden, everyone's yelling at me,
and they're all getting closer and surrounding me, and
I hear them from the tower, Yale, run.
And they slide the gate open slightly so that I can run
away from these angry inmates that are angry with me for
whatever reason. Yeah, so there was always
the fear of when I walk through this gate,
which once you walk through, some of the similarities to an N
are you can't take your cell phone. There is no contact with the outside
world. There is no YouTube. It's blocked. There's
no Gmail. It's blocked. So there's absolutely
no contact with the world. And so there's always the fear that once I
walk through there, I may not walk out. Yeah.
Wow. I have to say, wow a
little bit. That's. That's
intense. That's intense for sure. And I'm kind of
thankful you're not doing it anymore. So are my
kids. Because it does. It puts you in a state of
high alert all the time, which is what officers
are in. You're always looking over your shoulder. You're
always expecting someone to do something
wrong. Because I'm treating the person that you just
saw on the news shot up the bus. You know, these
are the people that I'm treating. And so now all this
negative stuff has become my reality, and I start to see
the world that way. Like, people are evil and you have
to protect yourself. So you get kind of this chip on
your shoulder. You're always looking over it. You're distrustful of everyone.
You have a difficult time now attaching to people because you
don't trust anybody also, too. Because
now what you learn to make of humor in that type of environment,
the average person is like, that's not funny. You know, like, it's dark or
it's morbid or it's weird. So then now there's
the isolation, Right. Where you're isolated from people
because you don't. They don't understand what you're going through.
And your conversation is different from theirs because of the
things that you see every day. So then that isolation
further impacts your view of people.
Yeah, it makes you think even worse of people. So
it changes your personality. It changes the way you see the world.
It changes your personality. My kids would tell me, man, you were on
edge all the time. We couldn't drop something without
you going for a weapon, thinking that you had
to defend yourself against someone. So it's
a very intense experience. Experience. And even though I'm out of
changes you neurologically, like, you just don't see
the world the same way as other people
do. Like, my partner is happy. Go lucky.
Running through the. The grass with
the daisies while I'm like,
is there a gun? You know, like, do you see that building? Did you look
in the building and make sure no one's trying to shoot at you while you're
running through the grass. Yeah. And, you know,
unfortunately, it's very similar to law
enforcement who can go to a routine traffic stop and
lose their lives. Yeah. And so how
does that. How does that impact your work? Because I know you've said some things
about, you know, officers, and for example, what you're talking about,
you can't have a traumatic experience like that and go home and tell
your spouse or, you know, or. Or your friends or like
how. Like how, you know, and then it's just maybe dark humor
between, you know, other police officers if you feel comradery
with them or, you know, how. How. How do. How does. How
do they cope? Unfortunately,
what we've seen in
that population is
depression, high rates of depression, high rates of
anxiety, high rates of substance use,
and definitely high rates of ptsd.
And the feeling like,
how do I cope with this? Especially because majority
of law enforcement is male. So, you know, you
have our societal issues when it comes to patriarchy
and men and the roles and behaviors
that society has told them are masculine, that they try to meet
every day. And then you put on top of that, you're a law
enforcement officer. So the feeling is
I don't really have an outlet. Who do I talk to? What
do I do? I really don't have an outlet. And
how sometimes that comes out in men in general,
not just in law enforcement, is through anger. Yeah.
And then anger can be what we see and what we can be afraid
of. Yep. You know, because that. That is scary. Anger can
be scary. Yes. So there's a track there that
I know with the programs that you're developing, you want to kind of
meet that. Meet that area in there that's not
being met. And you. You have said that there's sometimes resistance to
this. Right. When you forces. Yes.
So, you know, America
doesn't have the greatest. The greatest track
record as far as law enforcement and the
black community. And, you know,
many. Well, I don't even want to say many people know, because
I've learned more as I've traveled and
lived in different states that a lot of Americans don't know history.
They don't know a lot about what has
transpired, the roots of many things, the roots of
some of the systems that exist in the U.S. i
was fortunate enough to be raised by a father
who was a cotton picker, who marched with mlk,
who helped integrate schools in South Carolina. He was
an educator. He was a civil rights activist. And so
he made sure I understood History. Because if you don't understand
where things are coming from, you won't understand why they
are the way they are in the present. And so
we know in the south that law enforcement was originally
slave catcher. And the black community
just doesn't have the best view of law enforcement. And
unfortunately, it runs deep on the opposite
end. And so I've had situations
where we've reached out to law enforcement agencies.
My chief of staff, who's a white male, normally does it for me.
They're all on board, and then they meet me and see I'm a black
female, and they back out. And that, you
know, I heard. You have heard, you said that before, and it is
shocking in a way.
It's shocking to me, you know, not that I don't think racism is real,
but. But what you're offering is your. Because. Because the Cummings foundation
offers money to help. You're giving money. You're.
You're. Would you like this check for these programs? Right.
Can we implement these programs at no cost to you? Right. So
that's. That's. It's
telling. It's like, you know, this is Juneteenth, and it's telling.
Right. That there's there's still. There's still ways to
go, there's still issues. Yes. And
honestly, I feel like you are the woman to address so many of these things,
and I'm so honored to have you on the podcast for that reason.
I mean, I. I feel like I see the problem from
both worlds, you know? Right.
Because I have had pushback from the black
community, you know, like what, you're working with the police.
What is wrong with you? You know, and. Oh, so
you're gonna blame everything they do on
mental health issues and negate the fact that they're
racist. And so, you know,
I've had negative feedback even from the opposite end. But
for me, working in corrections,
working in the jail before that, and
becoming colleagues with these people, going through
the same things that they go through, and seeing how it impacted me,
I began to understand that our problem is way
more complex than someone doesn't, like, somebody who doesn't look like
them. Yeah, I can. I. That
makes sense. Maybe you could talk a little bit more than that. Like, I know
you've had. You've told me some things about. Just like you're in a situation,
it's a heated. You know, you have to make a decision very quickly,
and a bias might come in at that point, and that might
be where that happens. Yes. So humans
think in something we call in the psychological world as schemes,
schemas. And I'm going to try not to be too technical
for everyone. But we, we think in something
called schemas. It allows us to think quickly under
duress, and it's evolutionary. It
existed back when we were hunters and
gatherers and out in the wild where you had to think quickly and
if something or someone did not look like you, you had to
fight or run. Unfortunately,
the human mind has not evolved much past
that. And we still operate in a capacity where
you have to make your mind put in the energy load to
think logically. If you do not, it will think
in patterns. It will think according to
what is the quickest way that I can make a decision about the
situation. And that's where biases come in, which
we all have. Yeah, I have a bias
against snakes. I don't care what snake it is.
If I see it, I am running for my life.
Yeah. But I've lived places. I grew up in South
Carolina. You know, we had rattlesnakes, copperheads, you run from
those. Right. But then I moved to Georgia and I
saw things like black snakes, which actually eat other
snakes. You want them in your yard, they're not poisonous
and they'll eat other snakes. But I still saw this
snake and was like, absolutely not. I don't care what kind of
snake you are, I'm running because you're a snake.
I do that to preserve my life.
Right. And so humans, we tend to
think in a way that if we don't understand something,
if something is different, different from us, we will automatically
reject that thing. We will run from it or fight
it out of the need to preserve
ourselves. It's, and it's not logical. It's
an evolutionary behavior to
stop it. You have to think logically. You have to step in and now
start doing some decision making, some weeding out of. Is this really
dangerous for me? Is this really a bad thing? What, what evidence do I
have that this thing is actually bad for me? But
most people, unfortunately, research shows
most of us as humans don't do that regularly.
And definitely in a situation where your life is in
danger, you don't have the energy or mental capacity to do
it. Your brain is sending all the blood into
your body for you to run or fight. And so you're
going to start operating unknowingly off of your
biases. Yeah, yeah. And
you're, you have a proprietary program that you're going to be writing
and, and publishing later this year. So you can't say a lot about it. But
I know that's a piece of it is, you know, let's, and, and,
but everyone can, let's talk and if we, if you don't mind talking in general
terms about that, like, you know, not just, you know, a
police force, but all of humanity needs
to look at like how you describe this, the schema, the, the, the
training we've gotten or just our knee jerk reaction is maybe a word
I phrase I would use. And here's a situation, here's how
I'm going to respond to it. Here's a person, this is what I know to
be true about this person, you know, you know, here's
an event, this is what I know to be true about this event. There's
a mindset I know to be for or against this mindset. And
you know, in, in, I mean, not that I talk about politics on
here, but of course politics is, has been very heated. So you
know, we're all, we're all very for, against different things and that
can get in and that kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's draining, right? It's
very, very draining. So for just anyone
listening, do you have any ideas on, you know,
what can we do when we're thinking of, we encounter
a bias and maybe we're not even thinking about it, but we're just like,
that's bad.
So something very simple you can do is
Harvard did an implicit bias
research study. And so they have several assessments,
they're free. You can go to just
Google Harvard implicit bias and the website will
come up and they have every single common bias that you can
think of. Even from the standpoint of
do you associate women with
staying in the home and taking care of kids and men with work,
or do you like science
more than reading? Like every bias that you can think of, they have
it. And you can take these tests and they'll
tell you whether or not you have certain biases and
what they're for. Another thing that research says,
the biggest thing research says that helps you to
get rid of negative biases is
to entrench yourself in that group
that you have the negative bias against. And so for me it
was, I said, I'm going to work with
law enforcement because I am deathly afraid of them.
I grew up afraid of them. We did not view in
our community, we did not view the police as helpers. We
viewed them as terrorizers and people who put us in prison for no reason.
So I was deathly afraid of them. And that was my bias. Because
now working with them, that's not always true,
but I entrenched myself in the community. One of
the agencies we support, they do something
called community policing, but they do it the right way. So
what they do is they assign an officer to a
community, but the assignment is not
just to protect the community. It is to get to know
the community. They are to have lunch with them and
talk with them. They're taking the elderly in their
community their medications from the pharmacist. They're
raising money for kids who don't have food in their
neighborhood. And it significantly reduced the
crime. It significantly reduced,
you know, officer violence among the community. And
one of the times when I was visiting there was the most amazing thing for
me to see, because this department is majority
white, but these neighborhoods are majority black.
And I was at the station, it just happened to
snow, which is not normal for that area of South Carolina.
And you had black kids calling the
station saying, I want my officer to come play with me.
And they answer, and they said, hey,
this officer, they're off today. Can we send someone else to play with you? And
they're like, oh, we like our officer, but okay, you can send them.
And these are black kids with white officers that they're
asking, will you come play with me? And the officers, go play with them.
Yeah. But these stories you don't see
on social media. You see, you don't see on
the news. You see violence, you know, one
against the other. You see division, but you don't see the
agencies like this who care. This agency also
makes their officers continually go through simulations.
They. They didn't have a lot of money, which is why we're supporting them.
The little money and grant money they got, they spent it on this simulation
because they're so expensive. They got one of the cheapest ones, which is around
$100,000. Okay. But they got it.
Because what they do is they take officers over
and over and over again through real life situations.
And bodily harm is the last thing
they teach for them to use. And in these simulations, when
they use it, they're required to explain, why
did you do that? Instead of de. Escalating, instead of doing
this. This department also has a clinical social
worker on staff. When they get a mental health call,
that social worker is in the car with them. They do not respond
without a mental health. Some type of mental health technician.
But also they know their community. So if they get
a call that Bob is walking naked down the
road, they're answering the call, like, oh, no, it's
Because Bob has schizophrenia and sometimes
Bob forgets their medication. Let me go call their doctor
and, and get the doctor there and help Bob. Not let
me go arrest Bob. When I went
there, they were commending an officer because two officers
responded to a situation where a person was drunk.
They didn't, there was, there was
not even an attempt to arrest. They got his car to a safe
place and they got him home to his wife because they knew
him. They know the community, they talk to them. They
know what they're going through and they're now human to them.
They're not separate. They're not this person that looks different from me
and I don't understand. They're a human being just
like them. They found a common ground. But
like I said, these are not the stories that make the news.
No, right.
I won't even say that. But yeah, there is a, there is a clickbait factor
and, and sometimes the nice stories are on social media, but
they usually are not on world news or anything like that.
Yeah. Is this the same community that you guys
built the gym for? It is. Okay? It
is. They have a female chief and
she is amazing and she just
wants what's best for the community and best for her
officers. And the little funds that they could
acquire, they spent on the simulation so they could
teach their officers how to regulate themselves
better in high stress situations, how to de.
Escalate instead of responding in violence. And I
mean, I was just so impressed by how I saw
them interact with the community, the care that
they had, that I said we have
to help you. And so we did. They didn't. We wanted to do
physical training, which is one of the programs that we offer. They didn't have
a gym. We built them a gym free of
charge. Yes, Built it, bought all the
equipment and sent in the physical trainers to train their
offices. Yeah, I, I want to just put a short call
to action because if you have, if you'd like to see
programs in your area, in your precinct,
with your police officers, you can email you about that.
And also if you want to donate towards this
because this is a thing that brings a lot of healing and
health and safety to the community and to the country,
you can also donate also, which is
Cummings C U M M I N G and
S. That's on the end of it. And then c
f b h.org
Cummings foundation for Behavioral Health.org and that is part one with
Dr. Davena Longshore with the Cummings foundation for Behavioral Health.
Stay tuned next week where we continue this amazing conversation.
Thanks for joining us on Healthy, Happy, Wise Wealthy. If you believe in
stories that inspire and uplift, then please like
share and subscribe. And if you know someone who should be a guest,
go to healthy happy wise wealthy.com
no ands, ifs or buts about it and also
follow us on socials the same Healthy, Happy, Wise Wealthy
until next time. You all have a wonderful week
and keep on keeping on.