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What Being an Embedded Clinician Taught Me About Trust

I was on my way to a wedding when I saw the news on social media. Officers I knew had been hurt in a crash. I stopped in my tracks.

I had spent months riding with them on weekends. We talked at briefings, laughed together, and played on the same team at their local golf tournament.

I really liked these guys.

They were good young men with so much ahead of them. I admired their courage, their values, and their commitment to doing the right thing. They cared about making a difference. Getting to know them had shown me the qualities I hoped to see in every police officer.

Now they were hurt. I was worried about them and their families, and I wanted to be there.

I went to the hospital.

Months earlier, when I began working as an embedded clinician with a state law enforcement agency, I thought I knew quite a bit about law enforcement. I had worked in a jail for many years and facilitated debriefings after officer involved shootings and other critical incidents. I had experience helping people talk about trauma and painful things.

I thought I was there to help the officers. I had not anticipated how much getting to know them would help me.

Sometimes I introduced myself with a smile: “I’m just here to make friends. Do you want to be friends?”

It usually got a laugh. It was my way of opening a conversation and giving people a chance to get to know me.

At one office, I sat at a small table outside the main doorway. When someone stopped, I said hello. I learned a name and had a conversation. The next time we saw each other, we had somewhere to begin. I got to know one person at a time.

I went to the local coffee shop, too. If I saw officers from the office sitting there, I would join them. We could talk without needing a difficult incident as the reason. They had an opportunity to know me, and I had an opportunity to know them.

The weekend rides gave us hours together. I listened, asked questions, and saw their work firsthand. Through those rides, briefings, and time on the golf course, I learned their personalities, their humor, and what mattered to them.

I had years of experience talking with officers about trauma. Spending time alongside them helped me understand more of the lives surrounding that trauma. I learned to ask more questions and make fewer assumptions. As I got to know them, I cared more deeply about their lives and their families.

They also got to see the person behind my professional role. They could hear me laugh, ask me questions, and see how I listened. I could introduce myself as a clinician, but trust would depend on what they experienced with me over time.

Much of my previous critical incident work began after something terrible had happened. I would arrive for a debriefing and meet people I did not know. We would talk about difficult experiences. I would offer support, resources, and ways to reach me. Sometimes someone called afterward. Sometimes we did not see each other again until another incident.

Those conversations mattered. As an embedded clinician, I kept coming back. Our conversations could continue. We had time to know one another before we needed to talk about the hardest things.

Seeing the news about the crash brought home what those relationships meant to me. I remembered our conversations, the laughter, and the hours we had spent together. My concern for them continued beyond a scheduled visit or a debriefing.

I had entered this work thinking about what I could offer. These officers helped me see how much I still had to learn. Knowing them changed how I listened and deepened my understanding of the people I wanted to serve.

When I think about trust now, I think about saying hello at that doorway, joining a conversation at the coffee shop, and spending weekends riding beside them. Those ordinary moments gave us a chance to know each other.

When I walked into the hospital, we already knew one another. I was worried about people I cared about. I hoped that, long before that day, my actions had shown them they mattered to me.

Jill Peeler, LMFT
jillpeelertherapy.com
510-630-0831

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