First responders take a LEAP to share their load of trauma with peers for wellness

Photo by Joanne Beck
Jim Banish would probably give anything not to have the story that serves as a foundation for his nonprofit first responder training efforts, yet he has promised his family and himself that brother Joey didn’t die in vain.
Banish, a former police officer for 27 years and founder of New York Law Enforcement Assistance Program (NY LEAP), used the tremendous pain of his brother’s death by suicide as the impetus for doing what he could to improve the mental health and wellness of active or retired law enforcement members and first responders.
“I really want to offer them hope, I want to offer them knowledge, and I want to offer them a platform where they can go and get the help that they need themselves to live a long and healthy, happy life. Our life expectancy in law enforcement is 58 years old; it’s about 20 years less than the national average, and I don't think that's fair,” Banish said to The Batavian after a workshop Friday at Genesee County’s Emergency Management Training Center. “So my ultimate goal is to really bankrupt the retirement system with retired cops. But I want to give them hope, and I want to give them light, and I want them to know it's okay not to be okay, and you can go get help and break that stigma and make sure that they're not getting punished for asking for help.”
He and co-presenter Andy Carrier drove up from Georgia to talk to the class of nearly two dozen people from the county Sheriff’s Office, Dispatch Center, Batavia City Police, Department of Corrections, Emergency Management, and Mental Health.
They talked about the compounding effects of dealing with crisis and the physiological effects of trauma, including heart disease, panic attacks, irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, fatigue, and hippocampus shrinking and hardening.
“PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is now a line of duty injury,” Banish said. “It has a physiological effect. With trauma, it has a hippocampus injury. When we’re exposed to the amount of trauma that we’re exposed to, it hardens the lining of the hippocampus.”
These effects can be proven with an MRI test, he said, and is “a physical injury.” The good news is that it can also be reversible with treatment.
Banish, who grew up in Buffalo, knows about how trauma can affect a person. His brother had been with the New York State Police for 15 years when he ended his life. It was not only inconsolable grief for the family, but guilt that Banish suffered with for years afterward, he said.
“The day was April 1, 2008, which was the day my brother went home at lunch and shot himself and took his life with me responding to that scene shortly thereafter it happening,” Banish said. “It left me with a lot of questions and a lot of hurt and a lot of pain in my life. And I had been a police officer at that point for 10 years, and he had 15 years on, and ascended to the rank of lieutenant, he was moving up pretty quick.”
Through his own struggle while self-medicating and isolating for the next few years, Banish discovered that there wasn’t much out there in the way of resources for police officers when they especially needed it, he said.
“I wanted to start helping other police officers after I got help. I didn’t realize that it also encompassed corrections officers and dispatchers and fire, because they all see so much trauma, we all do in this field of first responders,” he said. “So after NY LEAP got launched —in 2017 — we started hosting post-critical incident seminars around the state. We started training other people to do what I was doing and to train them to be good peers and to get them the resources. Then, I started working with different clinicians throughout the state. And then I started going around the country, and I’ve been as far as California and Louisiana and all over the country to help spread the word.”
He and Carrier reviewed signs of distress, including an increased consumption of alcohol to self medicate; restless nights or days, depending on one’s work shifts; problems at work and not performing well; constant agitation; lashing out at others; destruction of home life and pushing loved ones away while isolating; and deep depression.
While those signs are being felt and exhibited, the officer or responder may also struggle with not knowing where to go for help or the potential repercussions for doing so, they said. There’s a fear of being fired, how administrators and co-workers may treat you, that firearms may be taken away, placement in a mental health facility, and/or of not knowing who to trust.
Current law enforcement culture is that:
- You can handle anything.
- Rub some dirt on it, and get back in the game.
- Laugh it off, make a joke, and it will help you get over it.
- Don’t ever let any other member know something is bothering you.
In addition to addressing suicide and PTSD, NY LEAP staff also aim to reduce the rates of divorce, alcohol abuse, cumulative stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. Evidence-based techniques and services are provided through education and training to help first responders live healthier and happier lives and be more productive and effective at work, the material states.
Healthy officers and responders are better equipped to improve relationships with the communities they serve, which in turn helps to create cost savings for departments. NYLEAP was created by peers, for peers, to help fight the stigma associated with first responders asking for and receiving help by having open conversations about mental health and the impact of trauma, the material states.
“The statistics are continuing to grow at alarming rates in terms of number of deaths by suicide; along with the frequency of PTSD, cumulative trauma, alcohol/substance use disorders, and other mental health concerns that may be caused by the day-to-day stress and trauma from the job,” it states. “In 2022, the number of reported deaths by suicide in law enforcement outnumbered felonious line of duty deaths by near triple rates. Our goal is to equip officers and first responders with the tools needed in order to provide individual and group peer support within their own agencies and with other responders throughout the state.”
Banish and Carrier recommended several books, including “Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement” by Kevin Gilmartin, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” by Viktor Franks, and “Invisible Heroes,” by Belleruth Naparstek.
The duo was excited to announce the debut of Valor Station, a behavioral health treatment center exclusively for first responders seeking help for mental health issues, to be opening Monday in Augusta, Ga. The goal is to open other sites throughout the country in the future, Banish said.
“It’s about us creating a place for us,” he said. “It’s built by first responders for first responders. It has taken a lot of time and effort. We’re gonna take care of each other and keep this going.”
His parents took a recent tour of the place and were greeted with a large memorial photo of their beloved late son Joseph, alongside his framed uniform. That’s a reminder for all that this young lieutenant’s life meant something, and he did not die in vain, brother Jim said.
“I promised my parents he won’t be forgotten,” Jim said.
Genesee County Mental Health Director Lynda Battaglia invited NY LEAP to offer the workshop as an overview of what officer wellness is, and to spotlight the very real need out there to take care of this county’s first responders, she said.
“What they see every day, what they respond to every day, builds up day after day, week after week, year after year, and a person can't carry that alone. They have to be able to process what they have seen and what they've been exposed to, and the only way to do that is by talking about it,” Battaglia said. “So talking with mental health, talking with a peer, somebody that's walked in their shoes, a clinician who understands, knows how to process trauma, I want to highlight officer and first responder wellness in the county because it's extremely important. We need it.”
Battaglia said she feels this topic overall is off to a good start, with officer wellness programs having already begun at the Sheriff’s Office and Batavia Police Department, and now this mixed group of attendees. As Carrier emphasized to them: “I want to let first responders know that it’s okay to get help.”

Photo submitted by Jim Banish

Photo by Joanne Beck