Episode 04 - Trust & Trauma: Morgan Haney, DGSO Community Outreach

Sheriff Armbrister and Morgan Haney discuss her role as an advocacy and outreach specialist at the sheriff's office. 

Morgan shares her journey from social work to dispatching, driven by her desire to support first responders and victims of trauma. She emphasizes the importance of peer support and community outreach, particularly for domestic violence survivors. 

Morgan highlights the challenges of building trust and the impact of her work, including attending court with victims and organizing community events. They also discuss the prevalence of trauma among first responders and the need for mental health support. Morgan provides her contact information for those seeking assistance.

NOTE: This episode includes discussion of suicide and suicide attempts. If this topic is difficult for you, please take care while listening. Feel free to pause or skip this episode—do whatever you need.

If you’ve lived through something similar, our hearts are with you. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. You can call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential support 24/7. 

Transcript

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Morgan Haney: 0:02

Uh, live. Okay, okay, let's do it. Let's

Jay Armbrister: 0:06

not sure what it is, but it's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do it. It's so funny. Okay,

Morgan Haney: 0:15

we're doing it, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 0:17

all right, all right. Welcome back to the newest version of the podcast, view from 101st thing first, I've got to get some apologies out of the way. I was admonished by my mother and my mother in law for the last for the episode with Katie Fitzgerald from the cjcc. See, I'm doing it there because we spoke mostly in acronyms. It was a lot of letters that people didn't understand, and I was told that I need to be better about explaining things, and I apologize. That's absolutely the truth. We I live and work in a world where we are covered up in acronyms, and I get I forget. So cjcc stands for the criminal justice Coordinating Council of which Katie is the director, so, so that's, that's that out of the way. So here we are today for our newest episode, and it's myself and Morgan. I'll let her introduce herself fully. But this is, this is one that I've I've been looking forward to. Morgan is my favorite person in the agency to talk to anyways, so this, this works out perfectly for the two of us to have a conversation about the work she does and and why she does it so, and why it's important. So we're gonna start with the easy stuff. Yeah, who are you and why are you here? So, okay, who are you? Okay.

Morgan Haney: 1:33

So my name is Morgan Haney. My actual name is Morgan Shockley Haney, for those who do know that I am a third generation Shockley in this area. My title with the sheriff's office recently changed, so I'm probably going to butcher it. It's advocacy and outreach specialist. So I do a lot of just advocacy stuff, really, then outreach stuff, perfect. Yeah, so

Jay Armbrister: 1:59

I wanted more than that. Oh, yeah. So, well, I tell you what I'll get to. I'll get to the rest of it. I'll just lead, I'll lead you down that path here in a minute. So what? Why are you here? What? What is it? What is it that brought you to the sheriff's office and what keeps you here?

Morgan Haney: 2:17

Okay, so I went to KU and I got a degree in social work, and I wanted to be a social worker. As long as I can remember, like fourth grade, they asked, What do you want to be? I was like, I want to be a social worker. And it ended up me trying a lot of different avenues to figure out what fit. So I did work with the unhoused population for an extended period of time. Is that in the Lawrence area? Yeah, at the Lawrence homeless shelter when it was back on Kentucky Street, that's where I used to work. I did, like, all my college time throughout there, and I found out, like, that wasn't the population I wanted to work with. It's just a really hard population to be with. It's just a lot of, like, revolving doors of people. And so I decided I wanted to work with kids, mainly kids with, like, severe mental health issues. And so I worked at kids TLC, which is in Olathe, which is like a facility where people stay, like the kids stay. And so I was like a resident hall manager over there, and spent time with the kids. And I thought that's what I wanted to do, but it's really hard to work with kids when they're forced to be there. So I left that, and then I became a case manager down in Franklin County, okay? And that one was also very hard, because that's down there. There's, like, these really small towns, and there's a level of poverty that I had never seen before, like those ran tool and Lane areas. And so it ended up being not doing casework, really. It was just providing basic services to kids, which was just feeding them and letting them sleep. And so sometimes my case management was just giving them a safe place to sleep and some food. Around that time that I was down there, my mom died, unfortunately, to lung cancer, and I just realized like life was really short, and I wanted to be doing something where it felt like change was happening. So my husband, at the time, still my husband, still married. This reason, that we're still married, divorce, outing now we're still there. He worked for the sheriff's office, and he was a corrections officer, no probably patrol at this time, and he had it in his mind that I could be a dispatcher, a 911 dispatcher, and we would get the same days off. He thought, with the sheriff's office, with over here, you guys can take off, like, a few days throughout the month, and then have the whole month off just based on your rotations. And he was like, you can do that in dispatch, too. And I go, okay, cool. So I joined dispatch. I got hired, I started the process, and then I learned that they have their own rules, and you cannot take off as much time as the sheriff's office this side does, but I ended up really loving it, and it's like social work, but once removed, and you can still help people where you're not actively there and seeing it, and I liked it, and then you came into office, and there was a training about peer support. And I went to that training, and I would. Wanted to be a peer support person for dispatch, but that training, it sounds so dramatic, but it changed my life, and I realized, like, I don't want to be on the phone anymore. I want to be with the people and helping them. I want to be boots on the ground helping the people that I work next to. Yeah. So I came to you and Stacy, and I said, Hey, do you have room for me? And we started this process into creating this position. So really, what it boiled down to was I was just tired of watching like people that I knew suffering, and the peer support training taught me how to help, sure, and I just really wanted not to watch my family drown, which was happening. I mean, Andrew had been my husband had been in the field for several years, and I was starting to see the effects of that. And then, I mean, I have brother in laws and cousins and family and friends, and just wanted to do something different. Sure, help them.

Jay Armbrister: 5:57

Well, I think you're probably not prepared to do it either, but we're going to talk about your dad real quick, who, who was a first responder himself. He was a volunteer. So, so I knew your dad through working at Hallmark. He worked out there with my dad for 1000 years, and but I also knew him through his other world of demolition derby that I used to partake in, and he was the head official. And so I got to, I got to, I got to meet your dad. Willie through that. And but then it wasn't until I actually got on the road in the streets and started responding to things that I started seeing him on calls. He was, I believe they used to call it can walk a But was he, he was in LA Compton, the Compton, that's what, okay, which is all, which was all volunteers, so, and he drove this old flatbed square body blue Chevy pickup that I knew was Willie's coming down the road. So it was really nice to have somebody that I knew and so, and it wasn't until years later that I saw your name hyphenated, that I put it together, and then you told me that that was your dad. So So did that have any I mean, did the fact that your dad would leave in the middle of night and respond to these kind of things. I mean, there, there's we always do. There's always some family piece to everything we do. Oh, absolutely. So, yeah, I don't want to, I'm not going to go down that road, but, but obviously, you know, your dad's no longer with us, and that makes, makes things hard for both, yes, you know, especially for for his daughter, but, but how does that? How do those two worlds kind of live together in in, in getting you into this, but also making it your passion? Or is there, is it just the fact that you just really like doing it?

Morgan Haney: 7:30

Well, I already warned you that I would probably try, just because it is hard to talk about Dad and I

Jay Armbrister: 7:35

already told you you're not going to cry alone. That's my role. I

Morgan Haney: 7:39

have a very vivid memory when I was like, probably 12 or 13, when Papa came well, I was asleep, and I woke up in the middle of the night, and I came out to the living room, it's already gonna make me sad. And the lights were on in the living room, the lights were on in the kitchen, and the TV was on, but it was muted, and Papa was sitting and just staring at the TV, dead silent. And I remember coming around and being like, Papa, and he didn't look at me, and then looking again, going, Papa, and then he finally judged that, like he tracked that I was there, but he didn't look at me, and he goes, Morgan, you're never gonna forget your first and that's when it dawned on me, at that time, I didn't know what had fully happened, but I knew that something bad had happened, and Papa had seen it, and it just has stuck with me all of these years. Like, what did he experience? And looking back, I'm pretty sure what he experienced was somebody perished and didn't make it, which was really hard. And he said a few more things that are just a little bit too much for a podcast, sure. And the next morning, I woke up and I said, Papa, do you are you okay? And he said, Yeah, fine. And acted like nothing had happened. So when I started into the 911 dispatching, and I would be the person that was sending my dad out to these calls, and then at times, sending my husband out to these calls, it just added this other level of oh my gosh, they're seeing some really messed up stuff, and I don't know how to help them. I don't know how to talk to them about these things. And so 100% is that why I'm doing this job now? Because I just remember my dad. I can't ask him now, but I know he suffered in silence, like he didn't talk about it with his family. He didn't talk about any of that. And my husband suffered for a really long time in silence before I opened up the door of like, Hey, I'm in a space where I can listen. And that's the other part of it. Not every spouse is in the space to handle it, and so it took a lot of years of me understanding what he might say and how I'm going to react to what he might say. That got me to this point. But I just I have trauma in my life for various things, and I know that they're carrying trauma. And by they, I mean my dgso family, they're carrying trauma, and anything that we can do to support them through that, that's just like all I care about. I.

Jay Armbrister: 10:00

Yeah, well, it was, it was an easy hire for us, but I feel and that was where I was trying to get to with the earlier question is, who are you? Is that? Is that your your roots put you in a special position to be what we like to call a peer you know, I'm a huge advocate of the peer model. You know, I can stand in front of a room full of incarcerated individuals and tell them how they need to be better. And there's programs out there, and if you just do this or just do that, and they are not going to listen to me, because I've never lived that life. I've never chewed that dirt. But if you bring somebody in, like artists helping the homeless, and some of our advocates who have been there can talk through that and then say, here's what I did that worked. They're going to listen to that person. And the same thing goes for the peer model when it comes to first responders, especially, but but the fact that a you had the drive and the ability, you had the background to do it, but also that you were you, you, you deeply cared and loved for first responders in your life, but also that you're a first responder to as a dispatcher, because I'm a firm believer that dispatchers are the Forgotten first responders, for sure, and so we're trying to change that culture as we move along. But so you were uniquely you. You had a skill set that was hard to put on a paper, but it was also hard to turn away from in in in in this situation. So it worked out splendidly. And

Morgan Haney: 11:23

you had that guy and before me, we had somebody that tried to do this position, before me, and he did a fine job, but it was not successful because nobody knew him. And so when I transitioned over, I was immediately with people who knew me, sure, personally, professionally, it was like walking into a house party, is how I would explain it, like I just walked in and everyone working, yeah, but everyone's crying, yeah.

Jay Armbrister: 11:47

Little different, you know. And he was, he was in a tough situation where he was building something from the ground up, so he was able to get a lot of that foundation built. But you're right, it was, he was, he was working from the negative in that nobody knew who he was, nobody knew where he had been, what he had done, what he had seen, all those things. So it was a perfect fit. So, you know, of course, we're extremely fortunate to have someone with from within the family who also carries the skill. So, enough about that. So, so how when it when we talk about peer support and and now your role also as an advocate for people, communities within specific communities, out in the community, in groups of folks, whether they be crime victims or just people who have had incidental contacts with law enforcement, but also people who just simply need services. How do you go about building the trust? I mean, we talked about the peer model with your peers. You know, that's kind of built in. But how do you go about well, I guess let's first off, let's kind of back up a little bit and talk about what is the other part of your community outreach portion that you do, whether it be the fun events or the hard work. Yeah, you know. So what does that look like

Morgan Haney: 13:06

for you? So the fun events are obviously the majority of what you see on the social media, like, if we're out in the community doing something, I was most likely had my hand in it in some way of making it happen, which is great. So those are, like, the school things, retirement homes, that kind of stuff. So that stuff's easy and fun and always positive, it seems. But the other side of what I do is I follow up with people that we have contact with in the community, like dgso has contact with, and so that can range from domestic violence survivors, which is where a huge chunk of my time goes, to but then also, I'll follow up with people who've been in a car accident, but just don't know where their car is, and so I'll call and tell them where their car is, or they found somebody deceased, unfortunately, family members and that kind of stuff, and that stuff is sometimes much, much harder, because I'm not necessarily talking to them because it was a good day for them. I'm talking to them because it was a bad day, or the worst or the worst day of their life? Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 14:03

yeah. So, how do you go about building trust with those folks? I mean, how does that, how does that look? Because, especially coming from, you know, wearing a sheriff's office local or high I'm the government. I'm here to help. Yeah, something that people really understand. How do you go about getting buy in from folks that maybe don't have that level of trust.

Morgan Haney: 14:23

I think the biggest thing that helps me is that I'm not law enforcement, so being that civilian piece is really helpful. So sometimes people won't want to talk to me because they think that I have some sort of legal ability to charge them with something or whatever, and I'm just like, Listen. I don't I don't care. I'm really just here to talk about you. And so that's how I do, that buy in is I don't care about the specifics. I don't care about and the fact is, I don't care about what the truth is or what really happened. I just care about how your your experience went, Yeah. And so I think that helps out a lot, where the first thing I say is, I'm not a cop, yeah? I. Just work next to them. And then also, I'm that kind of bridging the gap. If they do have questions that are law enforcement related, I say, okay, I can get you in touch with them, or I can have them call you. I think that helps too. I think that helps a lot with the trust and i i Follow through. I think that's the other piece of it too. I don't ever leave them hanging. If I say that there's going to be a follow up, there's going to be a follow up, and if it's later than I anticipated, I apologize, explain what's going on, but see him all the way through. And sometimes

Jay Armbrister: 15:28

these folks don't always accept everything, or they kind of time out, you know, they, you know, there may be a follow up, but they're not, they're in a different place. So, but I guess another aspect of this. So first off, we what we've learned, what I learned through my career, and what I'm sure you've learned as well, is that the criminal justice system, especially when it comes to domestic violence and any sort of person crime, especially within families, it's not really it's set up to protect protect victims, and whether that means arrest or separating people or or taking or filing charges, but it's never been very good about walking people through an extremely complicated and also terrifying, also and traumatizing, re traumatizing, and that was where we kind of saw this need, because under Sheriff Simmons, who everybody met on the first she ended up in the hallway downstairs one day during it was the restraint. We call them PFAs. It's a protection from a protection from abuse, or PFS is a protection from stalking, but a PFA from abuse is what we would always historically called a restraining order. And so if somebody files for a restraining order and it's granted, we go out, we serve it to them. They're not allowed to have contact or go to a certain place, but there's always a court date attached to that. And if you want to, if you want it to stick, you have to go to a court date. But they set them all for the same time. And so you get a bunch of people standing around this courtroom not understanding why they're there, what they're supposed to know, or what they're supposed to do. And UnderSheriff Simmons just happened to to end up in that group of it was, it was women that day, and they were all asking the exact same questions, what do I need to do? Is he coming, you know? And what, what does this even mean? What is the judge going to ask me? And and she was just so, I mean, and Willow here in town does an amazing job, especially with Shannon Reed as an advocate, who will come and work, work alongside these folks. But, but on that particular day, there was just, they had a lot of questions, and there was, and we felt like, Man, are we doing a disservice by going out and serving this paperwork and making sure that people are safe, but not helping them through the process itself? And, you know, and the courts have always been kind of set up to to just operate as they operate, not necessarily taking into account how to get the people into the system. And so we we feel like that was a needed area, and that you've really stepped into and kind of leaned into, so to speak. Oh yeah, yeah. PFA

Morgan Haney: 18:07

court can be really difficult because it is a bunch of people in one hallway, and sometimes the victims and the suspects are walking through the court security checkpoint at the same time. And so what I offer to the people that I talk to, to the survivors, is I'll help you with that process. I can't fill out the paperwork for you, but I can explain how it's gonna go, and I can attend court with you. And I think that's been a huge game changer for them, is because I'll attend court with you, but also because I'm in the building, you get to hang out with me upstairs in my office, and the court security guys will just tell me that you're here, that it's your turn, and we'll walk you down, or we can go into a separate hallway so that you're not just standing there staring at your abuser or being stared at or being stared at, and that's been just amazing. I feel like I've even had people be escorted in and out because the abuser has been so aggressive. But you're right. You have to go, I can't stress that enough, you have to go to court, because if you don't, then they just drop it, it just gets dismissed. So if you want to move forward with the process, you have to give that one time where you might be there with your abuser,

Jay Armbrister: 19:17

right? You know, we always know that a piece of paper is not going to stop somebody from doing something bad, but and sometimes that piece of paper is the only thing protecting somebody, and it's very disheartening when we get that in place, and then it doesn't, doesn't end up being followed through, and it disappears, and then we're kind of back to square one, and that person is being re victim. Revictimized, and, and it's hard not to be like we, we were here well, you know what happened? You know, but, but we also just don't know what was going on in their life, you know. And, and how hard it is to just get through the system itself, much less sit there in a hallway with this person. So it's, it's. Taken a lot of growing in on our part to understand this, but to really approach it from a victim centered in a human centered place. And I feel like we're making strides. We're not perfect, but we are better. We are

Morgan Haney: 20:11

definitely better. I feel I also like that, that idea, because one of the questions in here, if you ask it or not like one of the hardest things about this job is that it's not black and white, it's really gray. And so if you were to walk past my office while I'm making these calls, there are some victims that I'm talking to where I'm like, Absolutely, we're taking we're getting you into Willow, where you're moving away, you're getting away from the abuser. Awesome. But then I'll immediately call somebody else, and they'll say, I want to stay with the person, and then it's a different conversation of, okay, you're going to stay with them. How are you going to stay safe? Make sure you call us those kinds of things. And so it is. I'm not naive in knowing the statistics of domestic violence. I know that the likelihood of them leaving the first time is not going to happen. It's going to be several times until they actually find the ability to leave, and I just have to meet people where they're at, and that's the biggest thing. Like, you can call me and tell me that you're gonna stay with this person after they violently beat you, and I'm gonna go, Okay, I'm always available, right? And I've had people reach out to me years later or six months later, saying, Now is the time, and I'm ready to go, and I'm just, I don't ever hold the past against them. I go, Okay, here we are. Let's go. Let's make the moves that we need to do. There's no, I told you, so no, absolutely not. No,

Jay Armbrister: 21:30

as it should be. So well, all of this stuff is a super heavy and kind of ugly at times. Yes, what? What are some of the good things? What? What? What are good memories that you will carry away or have from the work you've done. So

Morgan Haney: 21:44

I thought a lot about this of which ones I wanted to share, because I'm not going to lie that a lot of what I do is heavy and hard. But one of the best stories I have is that we did an event. This is not, I guess I have. I'm going to do this one. So we had a citizen that we we went out to the stole church, and we did an event out there, and we had a citizen that needed help to her vehicle, and I captured the photo of the deputy helping her to her vehicle, and she wrote in and wanted to write to us, and said that we had, we posted it on our social media, and she said that we had made her a superstar, and that at her retirement home, everyone was like asking for her autograph, because they said, Look, you made it on the internet. And thought it was so cool. And so what I ended up doing was reaching out to that retirement home and asking, Can we come back and just hang out? And we now have a standing we go out there several times a year to talk to these people. You've been out there several times. Of course, we take the canine, because everyone loves the dog, but that's just goes just like that. One feels really good, because this is a group of people. First of all, they're the most informed group of people of the county. They know what's happening, and they're the most receptive and respectful, and they just love us coming. We don't go planning. We don't plan anything. We go with donuts and eat and just sit and talk, of course, donuts, but I think that feels really, really, really good. And then the other one that I think feels really good is the work that we've put in for the Ballard center, and we did like playground patrol, and we went out there. And it's still rolling over, where I'll see teachers or kids who will know me just in different events. And I like that too, because that's a generation that sometimes has a negative outlook of law enforcement 100% and it's just nice to see these lieutenants and sergeants and deputies running around playing tag with these kids and just getting their butts whooped like our people cannot keep up with six year olds. And so nobody can. Nobody can. And so it's just, I really like seeing those kids light up when we come around and to bring them the same stickers we bring every single time, but they all want to be covered in the stickers. And that feels really good now

Jay Armbrister: 24:01

Ballard. Ballard always, has always had a special place in my heart, especially, and it stems from 2020 when I was in the leadership Lawrence Academy. What they did was they paired us, they made us maybe a group of three, but either way, we were basically given a sheet of paper, and it was like, Okay, you're a 34 year old single mother who works at an insurance company as a receptionist, or whatever it was making such and such, and you've just been T boned wrecked, your car is totaled, you have a broken ankle, and you have two kids. How do you make rent? How do you pay your bill? And you're going to be off for six weeks and you don't have any paid time out. So we were sent out into the community to try to figure out how we were going to live and and here's a little spoiler alert, one team decided to get arrested because the jail was the best place to get their life back together and get your ID and get some work and get some housing and get that stuff. I don't suggest that for anybody. Body. But that kind of shows you what, what, what the work we do out there. But for us, we could get, I could get fed nine times a day and get clothing like that was this community is all on board. But when it came to time to pay my bills, my electric bill, my water bill, there was nothing that we could find happened into the Ballard Center to talk to them about daycare, possibly moving daycare over there. And it was Becky price at the time. She was the head of it, and she was like, Oh yeah, I've got this grant money that I can pay your rent for three months, and I can do this. And it just absolutely blew my mind, not only how open she was, but also is like, Oh yeah, if they had kids, we would be be doing this, that and the other. And I didn't realize how many directions Ballard, it's not just a daycare. No, they are a life care. And so it was, it just absolutely spun me on my heels like, holy cow. We've had this little treasure over here in North Lawrence, you know, hiding and hiding in the sand for all of these years. And so once we got into office, I was like, those are the kind of places that we need to invest in, because they're doing the work. And so they've been a tremendous partner for us. I love seeing all of that stuff. I know it's either way. That's That's just me talking about how much I love them. So now, when it I've got, I've got a list of questions, but I don't know if we're going to go, where do you see? Where do you see your position going? How do you, how do you first off, how do you measure success, whether it be through negatives or positives, and how, where do you see this going for the next few years, or many years, whatever?

Morgan Haney: 26:48

I don't know how I would measure success. I guess. I don't know if this is too dark, but I mean, none of our people have

Jay Armbrister: 26:57

so success would be zero suicides within our Yes. I

Morgan Haney: 27:00

mean, like, Yeah, that's exactly what I'm gonna say. Like, that's, let's say it for what it is, yeah. And I mean, I like that because I there have been suicidal employees, myself included, and we've done the work, and we've put in the time, and they're still with us. And so, I mean, that's a success. Every time that happens, that's a success. Yeah?

Jay Armbrister: 27:18

No, I think it's always so hard. And I talk about this a lot of times, it's like, you can't measure negatives. You can't measure things that never happen. People always want to know. It's like, well, I'm paying this much money. What am I getting out of it? Well, what you're getting is, we haven't had anybody kill themselves, yeah, that kind of stuff you can't measure. It's like, well, how many, how many lives have? Have a seat belt saved? Well, we don't know, because the person didn't lose their life. So we cannot conculate it. I feel like we operate in that, in that we all know the cost of something happening, but we can't quantify the cost of it never happening, and it's hard to to convince people that we need to put resources towards something that is not happening. And so law enforcement and what so from a law enforcement perspective only, not not first responders overall, but law enforcement, they call it blue suicide, and it is killing more officers per year than all others. So, so officers who are killed in the line of duty, officers who are killed in motor vehicle crashes on duty. You combine those, it's not as many as people that are killing themselves. Our agency has experienced a suicide. The Lawrence Fire Department has experienced, experienced too many of suicides. And so we're working your work, as I'm hearing you say, is to make sure that we don't become part of that statistic. Yeah, absolutely.

Morgan Haney: 28:39

I mean, I've just I was a dispatcher. When we did lose that person, I remember that person very well. And to be fair, I'm gonna be honest, I think the agency did everybody a disservice during that time. I look back at that time, and I didn't work with him connected, but my husband did. And just the amount of what the f is happening. What are we doing? No one was checking in with our people. No one was, and it happened during the most inopportune moment. I mean, it's always an opportune but there were so many people that were relying on that person, and they're just left unknown, and we were the people that found them. And I think about that. I think about the people that were involved in that, and how we have to do better than that? Yeah, no,

Jay Armbrister: 29:24

we, we, as an agency, failed that person, that person's family and ourselves, and not blaming anybody. You know that was, that was before I was sheriff. But the the ripple effect, but also, there's still a stigma attached to agencies admitting that they've had an individual kill themselves. Because one it used to be that that person wouldn't get their full benefits through their retirement if it was a suicide, so they would somehow try to try to extrapolate it out into it on duty so that the family could get their due. So. And so it was this kind of hush hush. We know what happened, but here's what we're calling it. Because what the family deserves, well, the family deserves a honesty and transparency, but, but so do the people who were working. And so we it's, I think, as Maya Angelou said, you know, when you know better, you do better. And so that's been, that's been a guiding principle that we've operated with for five years now, is like, we're going to screw things up, but we're going to get better from them. So, so I'm glad you brought that one up, because, you know, we are not here to trash, you know, the those that came before us, but that was a unique situation that came up that we just didn't handle quite right, you know? And and we hope we never have an opportunity to show that we're better absolutely but, but we do. We're more prepared, but also we're in a position now where we can help other agencies that may be suffering from something like that. So, and

Morgan Haney: 30:52

I just really appreciate that one of the things I think you did really well was just bringing in the word suicide into a conversation. I mean, I remember when I transitioned over, I met all the shifts, and one of the first things I did was talk about how I had been suicidal when I was in dispatch, and I was very, very close to completing the task, and nobody knew. And they were, these are my friends, and they're just like, what was going on, what was happening? And I'm just like, well, you know, sometimes you never know, yeah, you know, unless somebody talks about it, sure. And I remember somebody I'd known for a decade finding me a few weeks after that, and just saying, I I've had those feelings before, too, and now, almost five years later, like suicide, is talked about a lot in my daily It sounds crazy, but it's talked a lot, sure, weekly in my work, and then it's talked about with my my coworkers, everyone. It's just, it's okay to say that word, because the statistics are right. Like one out of five of us have felt that. And looking in this room, I can tell you, I'm one of those people sure this is I'm in. I'm a statistic.

Jay Armbrister: 31:53

Well, yeah, so it's, it's funny in this room, at least two out of the four of us, yes. So, so I, since we're on the topic of suicide, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go on a little tangent real quickly, having worked patrol and investigations for combined on 18 years, or whatever it was, I dealt with suicide firsthand as the person who responded. And so I found myself through my years and my career starting where most people start in that you think to yourself, What a selfish thing, the old adage, what is it a permanent solution to a temporary problem? And and I would, I would see these, these families just grieving and falling apart, or wishing for answers to questions that will never be answered. And thinking, My God, how can you leave people like this? How can you do this to these people that love you somewhere along the way? And I wish, I mean, I wish I could pinpoint it, but I worked a suicide, and I remember thinking to myself, Man, how bad was it that this seemed like a good idea, like this was your best option. Clearly, I'm not understanding what was going on. And so that really started to kind of shift how I looked at it and viewed suicide as a whole. Because, you know, people do crazy things, they'll make plans for tomorrow, knowing they're going to end their life today, and the family's like, well, they couldn't have killed themselves. They were going to meet me for lunch. No, that absolutely happens. And or he was in such great he was in such great spirits two hours before. You know why? It's because he had made the decision and he felt free, finally. And so, so like these things, I started as I learned, and started to process these things. And then somewhere, you know, post 2015 i i made this full circle to where I began to feel envious, because these people had finally reached that, that point of peace of for me, what I always use the term quiet. They finally because, you know, my head is, is just nothing but monkeys juggling knives with music playing at all times and and I felt like, how I can see how that happens, I get it now, like I really get it. And in my own personal journey, and I've talked about it a lot, I was never actively suicide, but I was ready to be, I wanted to be killed on the in the line of duty, because I felt like my family deserved to have that hero's send off and but it also got me to where I needed to go, and through the years of like processing that and putting it all together, understanding it, but also seeing it for what it was, as it was really just a need for change, I was able to, kind of, I was able to walk myself back into the sunshine and but I still carry suicide in a way that is deeply personal and and I think that we can bring that to these to begin to help the living, you know? And that's because, I mean, that's, let's face it, the funerals are for living. They're not, oh yeah, for the deceased. And. So that has been, been kind of the thing that that we want to to really narrow down and is help the people that are left in the wake of this. So, you know, we all talk about our story, and I love that, I love that you share your so openly, oh, yeah, and, and I try to to give my perspective as much as I can, but, but we're just trying to change a culture, because the culture has always been as we take care of our own. We're ready for the next one. We don't talk about it because we're way too tough to be hurting the way that we hurt. So that's that's been, that's been a big mountain to overcome. So I

Morgan Haney: 35:35

like to talk about suicide in the form of, like it happens slowly, and then it happens really fast, like it was for me personally, it was one of those that it had never been on my mind before, but looking back like how, how slow, I progressed until it was really fast, and then I was, I was very, very close. And so it is hard to talk about that time, especially because I was very actively too close to for comfort, wanting to end my life. But now, when I think about it, because I've been suicidal since then, I like to give the adage that, like it's not for some people, suicide is option 100 but once you've been suicidal, it kind of becomes option 10. So it's not always option number one, but it's definitely up higher than it was, because, like you all I want when I'm suicidal is for it to be quiet, because it does feel so loud around me. The first time, I was really, really close, and I had to go. I went to the doctor, and I I told my husband, I said, we need to go the doctor. I'm not feeling very good, and he went into the doctor's office with me, and he asked the doctor. Goes, well, Morgan, why are you here right now? And she looks at Andrew, she looks at me, and I'm just like, and I start crying, and I say, if you guys let me go home tonight, I'll kill myself. I'll never forget the way he looked about it. I'll never forget how overwhelmingly, what relief I felt that I had finally said something, and how great he was supporting me through that process. So when I became suicidal again, I didn't let it get all the way to that level. It was one of those like, this is a safe person, I can tell him. And I came home, and I had been actively in therapy, and we had been trying to work through it, but she had prompted me like, hey, you need to have a safe person at home. And I came home and I said, Hey, I need to talk to you about something. And he just looked at me in the eyes and goes, Do I need to hide the guns again? And I said, Yeah, you do. And he goes, Yeah, you just haven't been yourself. And I was just waiting to see so it's never option number one for me, but it is pretty high on my list, and so I I have to be vigilant about it, because I do want to live and so therapy and medication, if needed, and a support system and talking about it, I rely on people to know that I'm suicidal. Like, when I'm in those moments because I'm you're holding me accountable. Like, if you know that I'm suicidal, you're probably checking in sure if I'm not responding correctly, you're going to be like, Hey, is everything okay? And so that's what I need. And so when I work with people, that's what I expect. And I've done that before where I'm just like, hey, I'm just your life accountability partner, making sure you're staying alive. That's it.

Jay Armbrister: 38:14

Sponsor, yeah, that's it. Yeah. I think, you know. And just talking about it like it's like, it's an actually, a real thing, which it is, it is, it's and the other thing is, like, only the people who have maybe reached that threshold will understand when somebody comes to him and says, Well, I'm having these thoughts. And instead of freaking out, like a lot of people will do, like, Oh my God, what do we got to do? We're going to get you checked in. Like, just be like, Okay, I get it. Let's talk about this, and then, and then, let's see where you're at and see if there's something we can do. Don't treat them like they're now an infectious disease. It's, it's, it's treat them like, Hey, I get it. Are you going to do it right to second? Yeah, yes or no, because that's going to change. If they say no, then okay, then we're off and running. You. Thank you for thank you for giving me the opportunity to try to help you. And so either way, we could talk for days and days and days and days. Yes, what else about you and your job? Do you think that people so I always like to ask a question, if you could whisper into the ears of every person in this community that something about what you do that you think that they may not know or may not understand, but you could get them to hear you at least once. What would you want to tell them? I

Morgan Haney: 39:27

don't know. That's a hard one. Oh, okay, so what I would want people to know, I guess, would just be that like trauma is real, and traumas around everyone, and we're all people, and we're just really trying, sure, like life is really hard, and we're all trying. And I think I come at it very interestingly, because I'm a civilian, sure, but my family is mostly first responder, and my DGS. Life, and people see the uniform, and they just think that they're not a real person robots. Yeah, they're robots, but they're actually real people with real families and experiencing trauma, sure. And so I guess what I would wish everyone to know is like, we're human. Yeah, we're here. We're trying. Like, please just just know we're fucking trying. Yeah, absolutely,

Jay Armbrister: 40:23

I get it. So the the study I had heard these numbers have been thrown around a lot, but the average citizen within the United States experiences three to five traumatic events within their life. Yeah, that's if you live to be 85 years old, three to five traumatic events first responders can experience anywhere between 300 to 500 in a career. And so we it that analogy is always about taking rocks and then putting them in your backpack, and eventually that backpack will either break or it will break your back. And so that's really where the crux of our work is to try to take those rocks out, or learn how to carry them in a more healthy way, or stop putting more in what's already there. So,

Unknown: 41:14

and I like that analogy, because I think what I do really well with like the victims that I work with and with law enforcement is like, give me your rocks, because they're not mine. So as soon as we're done talking, I'm dropping them. Yeah, you don't have to carry them anymore. You gave them to me, but they're not mine, so I'm just gonna drop them. So everyone's gonna be lighter when we walk away. Hopefully none of, none of what I do, some of it weighs with me for just the weight of the job, but it doesn't weigh with me, adding to my trauma. Sure, it just I don't have enough room in my own backpack for everybody else's right? So, like, just give me, give me it for a little bit, and then you're gonna walk away and I'm just gonna drop that rock, and we're good to go. You're so

Jay Armbrister: 41:53

much healthier than I am. I'm just like, maybe I could fit a bigger backpack. No

Morgan Haney: 41:57

therapy twice a week. Thanks, therapist.

Jay Armbrister: 42:00

Okay, well, we we could talk again, like I said for hours about all this, but I always like to ask something funny or fun about you that we would all love to know. But my question is simple, three part question, okay, what was your first concert? Oh, yeah, okay, what was your most recent and what was your favorite?

Morgan Haney: 42:24

Oh, god, okay, so my first concert has to be Rockfest, and I was like 14,

Jay Armbrister: 42:31

and the old have been what? Year?

Morgan Haney: 42:34

20? No child, yeah, 20 something. 22,000 2000 ish, yeah, 2000 2000 and the only rule was that my mom wanted, like, two out of my five sisters to go with me, because then they could, like, corral me. But then she didn't realize that those were, like, hoodlum sisters, and so they ran away, and I was just standing all by myself. My most recent concert, I truly don't know. I don't actually really go to concerts very much it actually, it was probably a couple years ago I took my mother in law to, like, an Irish, oh, step dance concert at Liberty Hall. So that was pretty cool. And my favorite has to be a Metallica concert that I went to when I was, like, at the height of my Metallica life. So I had to have been like, 2006 2007 where was it at? I don't really remember,

Jay Armbrister: 43:23

like, arrowhead or anything. Maybe it was really big. I'm sure it

Morgan Haney: 43:27

was gifted to me by a sister, and so it was just a really good time. Yeah, I love me some good, good old Metallica. I saw

Jay Armbrister: 43:34

them in 1989 at sandstone. It will always be sandstone. At sandstone, on their injustice for all tour. Oh, very nice. So, yeah, I was, well, 89 I would have been 14 years old, and that was I'd seen my first poison, my first concert ever. I said this already was poison in 1987 and it was funny because it was three me and two friends and but we had to buy four tickets so one of their dads could go with us to drive us. So I had to, like, mow yards, and I had to buy my ticket and a third of another or a quarter of another ticket, but it was same thing. We had to, we had to buy tickets. And a friend of ours, Dad went with us, and he just stood there the entire time, just staring at the stage with his arms crossed, never broke. It wasn't. He was not having it, not having it, but, but it wasn't. He was nice enough to drive us there and take us home. So nice little

Morgan Haney: 44:22

14 year old. Year old kids. Yeah, I used to have to drive people home because my sisters were all older, and so they would partake, and then I have to drive home.

Jay Armbrister: 44:31

Okay, well, I think we've talked long enough, and I can't thank you enough for the work you do and the work that you will continue to do for us. But I think if, if people wanted to reach out to you, is there a good way to do that?

Morgan Haney: 44:45

You can reach out to me by my email, which is m Haney at DG, s, o.org, or a n, e, Y, yes. And then you can also call me at 785-813-9055,

Jay Armbrister: 44:58

yeah, I can't stress. Honest enough to people is that you don't have to get arrested or go through the system just to get services or get to have us step out and help you. We are here. We love doing preventative maintenance as well. We prefer it because it can really pay off in the long run, but, but, yeah, we're here to help in any way shape or form, so absolutely okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me, and I just, I love having you with us, and I love working with you. So thank you so much, and we'll see you. We'll probably have you back on at some point so we can talk more about horrible things. Cool, yeah, can't wait. All right. Well, thank you, Morgan. Thank you. Applause.