How A First Responder Mental Health Podcast Grows Sustainably: 5th Anniversary Celebration

Five years ago, I hit publish with a simple goal: make mental health easier to talk about and easier to access. Now, Resilience Development in Action is built specifically for first responder mental health, because police, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and dispatchers carry stress and trauma most people never see, then get told to just push through it.

I’m sharing what’s kept this podcast steady for weekly Wednesdays, including the behind-the-scenes support that makes the audio and video work, plus why I keep sponsorships limited to tools and brands I genuinely stand behind. You’ll also hear why I don’t want mental health care to be something you reach for only at the breaking point. I make the case for wellness visits, a practical “checkup from the neck up” that mirrors how we treat physical health and lowers the barrier to getting support early.

We also dig into the work I’m doing with departments through FRTRESS, with a focus on education, familiarity, and referrals that actually fit the culture. And if you’re curious about the video side, I point you to Apple Podcasts video and YouTube, plus a fun giveaway tied to what you can see on camera.

If you’ve ever thought “I’m fine” while carrying too much, hit play. Then subscribe, share the show with someone on your shift, and leave a review so more first responders can find trusted mental health resources.

The Behind the Badge and Beyond Website is:  https://www.behindthebadgeandbeyond.com/

My website is: www.steve-bisson.com

Video version of the podcast is available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/resilience-development-in-action-first-responder-mental/id1569606639

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Transcript

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Welcome And Mission Of The Show

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Beesham. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.

Five Year Anniversary Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to the fifth anniversary. I can't believe it's the fifth anniversary of my podcast, Resilience Development in Action. Which, if for those of you who have been with me since day one five years ago, knows that it was called Finding Your Way Through Therapy. Just a clear quick, like I I don't know where to start. This is a video because I've it's a solo episode. I haven't done those in a while. I just want to say basically what I need to say. So stick around. There will be some stuff that's really important for you guys. But let me start start off with the first thing is that you don't listen to podcasts a whole lot, then you listen to mine. I really appreciate that. But I want to say start off with thank you. And who do I am wanting to thank first? You guys, you listen. You know, I've got a lot of downloads. It's certainly not grown exponentially. I'm not Joe Rogan by any stretch of the imagination. Thank God for that. So for some people, and for some others, why not? But you know, you guys comment on it. I have people who write to me, people sometimes who don't write see know me, and they comment on it. They might even text me for those of you who know me. But that's why I do the podcast. I I didn't do this to I still enjoy it five years later, but I do it for your listeners because I think, first of all, mental health is the most important thing in the world. That's why I start off with finding your way through therapy, which is based on my book. Go to Amazon, go to Mars and Nobles. You can even contact me and you know, very reasonably priced, been around for about five years. And there's also a journal that comes with that. Again, go to my website. I can even link it in the show notes. But for those of you who bought those, people who have listened to my episodes, who bought from my many sponsors I've had over the course of the several years, but my most important ones that I've had, it was free.ai, which I still support wholeheartedly and I use regularly. I also want to support Deemed Fit. And then I'm sure there's going to be a couple of commercials cutting in and out, but I promise this is to, I don't, you know, one of the misconceptions a lot of people and misunderstand, they think we get paid for those commercials. No, it's um if you buy something, then I get something. If you don't, you don't, and that's okay too. I don't mind. But I believe in those products. That's why over five years I can say that you probably heard maybe two to three products, and you're gonna say, well, that's not a lot. Well, that's the point, is that I don't, unless I stand behind it, I'm not promoting it. But you guys have always said that you like when people have used free.ai, people have you have bought some stuff at Deem Fit, they've told me they really liked it. So go back. Well, I'm sure there's gonna be a commercial and we're gonna put it in the show notes. I would love you for you guys to really go and support me, support the show, but support most importantly, those guys. But the listeners are what keeps me going. If you know a little bit about podcasts, it's a very crowded room, but I get you know enough downloads to keep me happy. It's never gonna make me quit my job. And even if I could quit my job, there's never gonna be a time where I won't be doing therapy for first responders or work in different ways that I do my work. And we're gonna get to that later. But thank you guys. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You've told me a lot of great things, but I'm gonna get a little emotional because you're the best, and I really appreciate

The Team Behind The Podcast

SPEAKER_00 3:43

that. I also want to talk about the behind the scene people, those people who you may not know. I've mentioned them on some shows, but I don't mention them enough. And one of the first people I want to thank is my longtime editor and person who gives me advice if some of the stuff is not going well, fixes my voice when my voice doesn't sound so great or the volume on the mic is not great. And uh, her name is Chelsea Weaver. Chelsea Weaver works for Steel Tiger Media. So if you ever want to podcast need someone who does great editing, does great intro, outro stuff, and really puts everything so seamlessly together for me, go see that website. I will link that in the show notes also. But from the bottom of my heart, Chelsea, you've given me advice, you've exchanged with me, you've communicated so efficiently. I've never had an episode show up late, which is quite remarkable over five years for weekly Wednesdays, and that's thanks to you. So thank you, Chelsea, and please go support Steel Tiger Media, Instagram, and go to their website. Someone who's fairly new, about a year now, and have done a few in studios at Milford TV. Shout out to Milford TV too. But her name is Dominique Ciampa. And Dominique is someone who has done a lot of great work with me, has been super patient, and has produced remarkable videos. And I hope you get a chance. We're going to talk a little bit about videos. And for those who don't know, Apple Podcast is now on video, so you can go find me there. This is on now, and she does a remarkable job with the video too. So I want to really put out a shout-out for that. Uh, for Dominique and Chelsea is doing my video too. So, you know, mention that. Buzzsprout has supported me for five years. You can say, How do they support you? They just distribute your podcast. Well, they've distributed my podcast, they've given me great stats, they've given me a whole lot of different options. I listened to a couple of their in-house podcasts that are really good and give me a lot of ideas. Some of them don't don't really go for me, but I certainly use some of it. But thank you, BuzzSprout, and they they're one of the first ones to really distribute through Apple Podcast TV or Apple Podcast Video. I don't even know what they call it yet, but go find that. And really, she's done a great job. And Buzz Sprout has made sure that it's distributed adequately for a reasonable price. I want to thank a good friend of mine who uh who recently has gone working somewhere, Elison, good for her. But Courtney Romanowski, a friend of mine, but more importantly, a great therapist. And for those of you who remember finding your way through therapy, she did a lot of dance movement stuff, and she was remarkable at that. She did stepped in a few times when I needed it. She also helped me out with stuff that I may not know about, and I certainly don't know about dance movement therapy and the movement in general, and she's really helped me. So shout out with her. The other thing I want to say is thank you to my kids. I I don't talk about my kids a whole lot, but they're the most inspiring thing in my life. And I'll have an adult child, and the other one is about two years or so from that, and then one of them is gonna start going to school at uh at the college, and not that I don't I don't trust my my audience. You understand that I don't talk a lot about my kids because it's their lives. They never asked to be on a podcast, but they support me. They always have been there for me. I'm super proud of them, they're super great kids. I always hear that from all the teachers and people in the community or anywhere that they go and work, they're like, what remarkable children. They're so supportive. And I do it for them. I know that probably you'll say, Well, you know, it costs money to make a podcast. I guess I'm taking away their money, but they keep me going and they don't want me to not do my passions, just like I teach them to follow their own passions. My oldest will be going to nursing school because she's very passionate about that. And thank you to my girlfriend who has been four or five years, four of the five years I've been doing this. She's been there for me. Also, remind a reminder if you ever want to go see that, is I think it goes back three years. But we did a podcast together about what it is the data therapist. If I can find the link, I'll link it in the show notes. But would love for you guys to get that and you know, go see that. But she's been very supportive. You know, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the merch later on, but remember there's a merch question coming up, and there's something very important coming up for that, so keep that in mind. I'll throw it through a first commercial here.

Sponsors I Actually Stand Behind

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Get free.ai. You heard me talk about it. I'm gonna keep on talking about it because I love it. I've had about a year and a half, 18 months practice with it, and I still enjoy it. And it saves me time and it saves me energy. Free.ai takes your note, makes a trans what you're talking about a client, just press record, and it does either transcript, it does a subjective, and an objective with a letter if needed for your client and for whoever might need it. So for $99 a month, it saves me so much time that it's worthwhile. And if you do it for a whole year, guess what? You get 10% off. More importantly, this is what you gotta offer, because you are my audience that listens to Resilience Development in Action. If you do listen to this and you want to use Free.ai, put in the code Steve50 in the promo code area, Steve50, and you will get $50 off in addition to everything we just talked about. Get freed from writing your notes. Get freed from even writing your transcripts, use that to your advantage. Free.ai, a great service. Go to get free.ai and you will get one of the best services that will save you time and money. And I highly encourage you to do so.

Subscribe Reviews And Why The Show Changed

SPEAKER_00 9:33

I'm back and so happy to be back. You know, one of the things that I don't do that they teach us to do in those podcasts, and what I hear all the time is make sure to tell them to subscribe, like, and review positively your podcast regularly. I don't do that. I should probably, but I don't. But if you are listening to this five years in, I'm gonna ask you to go do it. Go like and subscribe, share it with people, go do a review, tell me how good I'm not or I'm how all good I am. Whenever you listen, there's you know, there's so many platforms now. You all know the major ones, you know. You know, we talked about Apple Podcasts, we have Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, Pod Chaser. There's so many of them. Go like and subscribe and do a review because those reviews mean the world to me. That means people are listening or maybe too shy or don't know me personally and they don't go and they don't want to come and talk to me, so which is fine. But I really want you to do that. Leave those reviews. The reason why I went from finding your way through therapy in a general podcast, a general mental health podcast to today, where I do a first responder mental health podcast, is that finding your way through therapy was my book, but it was also a way to introduce mental health. I think that there's a lot of things that are not known, and it's like sometimes people practice a certain way for mental health, and that's fine. I'm certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but I also think I bring a lot to the table with my style. And I want to discuss these styles and how it goes and how it's perceived. So wanted to make sure we talked about that. And now that it's on first responders, the reason why I went to that is just my passion became clear that it was first responder

Wellness Visits For First Responders

SPEAKER_00 11:09

mental health. I've been doing this for close to 27 years now with first responders indirectly at the beginning, very directly in the last 15 to 20 years, roughly. And I wouldn't change it for the world. And I will continue doing that. You're gonna get a lot of interviews in the next few weeks, and I really appreciate you guys always listening and always enjoying it. You know, first responders have wounds in the mental health world that most people don't see. And we tend to overgeneralize about police in particular, but firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and I love my ER people as much, my military, and don't forget my dispatch. My dispatch is so important to me. I really want everyone to know that I'm fine, culture doesn't work. We all need help. We do the checkout from the neck up once a year through wellness visits. We can talk about that a little bit. But wellness visits are key for first responders. You may not have anything wrong, but you go do your physical health. So you you should do the same thing for your mental health. You carry too much sometimes, your first responders, people, and you need to be able to find the right people. Am I the therapist for everyone? Of course not, as I said earlier. But I, you know, there's resources out there. Go find them. And if you're in a state where you're in a union, your union people know that. And if you don't have a union, contact me. There's a chance I know someone in another state. I actually know people from several states across the country, but please contact me. But we need to be able to do that. You know, part of the stuff that has come about from this resilience development in action, as well as my work with first responders,

Fortress Program And Department Support

SPEAKER_00 12:42

is with my uh partner Bill Duinell's. He's been on a couple of times. And shout out to him, former EMT, who has been in the crisis team world for mental health for the, I don't know, 30 something years. I don't even know. Bill's been doing it forever. And he is excellent at his job. And we do something called Fortress. And Fortress really talks about the wellness visits, being able to go to departments, support them via wellness visits. They want to go to us. We don't mind if they want to go to someone else. We have resources in the community in Massachusetts and uh Rhode Island. We do work with Rhode Island. We also work with New Hampshire, we also work with Vermont and Pennsylvania recently. And, you know, right now I'm working on getting stuff done in uh New York and in the state of New York. But the bottom line is what we do is not only encourage wellness visits, we also encourage education monthly. And what I mean by that is mental health is one of those things that people don't like to talk about, and we want people to talk about it. And that's what we do, and we bring it up so that you have a friendly face. So when you do a wellness visit, you're like, oh, I know Steve or I know Bill, or Bill seems to be a good guy, and Steve, but I want to work with a female. Well, Steve has uh and Bill have referrals for that. And the reason

Clinician Network Behind The Badge

SPEAKER_00 13:55

why we have referrals is another role. A few years ago, I was invited to a group already existent that was uh and it was not there, I think we called they called it first responder mental health group. And there was original members, and because I don't want to miss anyone, I'm not gonna name names, but shout out to Lisa, who I know really started at all, and then had other members, including Aaron. We also had Alexa and Richard winning. And now it's expanded over the course of years. And recently we went through an election, and our goal is to make mental health for first responders known not only to first responders, train clinicians so that they can work with first responders, just not claim they do, but they actually have uh like the capacity to do so. And finally, the other part too is we want to make sure we get clinicians across the state of Massachusetts. And if you're not from Massachusetts or in the the close vicinity, we we're more than happy to con if you want to contact me again, just go into the show notes. You can contact me directly there. You can write to me. I'm easy to find Steve at steve-bsone.com. You can go to my website for that. But we would love to vet you. But the be, you know, I was elected president and I'm so happy that they did. And I really take this job seriously because I want first responders to have the proper help. And we aim also to do a lot of education. We aim to vet the right people, and more importantly, we want to make sure that we can get the support that both the therapists and the first responders need from us, and that's what that group's for. So if you want more information on behind the badge and beyond, go to the website. I'll put it in the show notes too. I'm gonna put a lot of stuff in the show notes, I guess, today. But more importantly, I just want you guys to be able to go and get the right help. Again, I'm gonna like pause here and I would love to for you to listen to this little 30-second tidbit because this is all important stuff for me. Just a quick break, guys. I'm gonna talk about a new product that I really like. I actually bought one of their hoodies, it was amazing, and I really enjoyed wearing it. Uh, it this episode is gonna be supported by Deemed Fit. Deemed Fit is a first responder-owned activewear and a leisure brand. And one thing that I genuinely like about them is that they support different causes. I actually gave a few people I know who work with first responders or nonprofits their name to uh Deemed Fit, and I know they're talking to them. They do a lot of initiatives and collections that are based on mental health for first responders. And if you go there right now and you buy anything, including the mental health support stuff, use the code R D A15. That's right, R D A 15, to get 15% off on any products that you get. Again, it's called R D A 15. Go to deanfit.com, D-E-E, M E D, F I T.com, and enjoy 15% off at checkout to save. Now, right back to the episode. Now that I'm back, I've been a little out of words because it's truly an honor to be able to do the Fortress stuff working with first responders. This is not something I take lightly. I'm a civilian. I've never worked in those jobs, never will I claim. And some of my clients who've known me for a couple of years tell me, yeah, we know Steve, you say it all the time, but you do understand the culture. So it's always an honor and a privilege to be there. When I get invited to departments, I treat it as such. I'm visiting them, but yet they they always see me with open arms. They're always great for me. And I thank them for that. You know, I've been a little serious today. I I don't know, I don't have much jokes. It's that season, that time of the year for you

Video Podcast And Giveaway Contest

SPEAKER_00 17:39

for you guys who may not know, there's a video podcast, right? Apple Apple Podcast Video now is available. There is my YouTube channel that's been available for about three to four years. And if you can't see me right now, that's then go see those things. But go haves go. We are in the middle of the NHL playoffs. I'm so excited, I'm so pumped. And for live for Montrealer living in Boston, who has embraced both the Bruins and the Canadians, and again, write to me if you're upset about that, because they're rivals. But I will always be Montreal first, Boston second. But enjoying the playoffs right now. And if you are too, just like again, like, subscribe, write a review, whatever, even if you don't like the Canadians, say he's a good guy, but he doesn't he doesn't like the right team. That's fine, but just do something with that. But more importantly, I want you to go to YouTube channel and the Apple Podcast video because what I would like to do as just as something that I can do for you guys is there's a contest coming up, and I'm not gonna say what it is, but right now I've been wearing a hat throughout this podcast. There's it's a specific color, the main color on it. I will not take the secondary color, which I'm moving my head right now. You can see it. You can't see it on obviously on a podcast, but go to the video podcast or your YouTube. And if you want that hat, just write in the comments what color the hat is mainly. What's the main color on the hat? And from that, I will be able to like I'll choose a random name and I'll definitely give the hat away. And more importantly, the other one, too, is I've gotten these a few years ago, and then everyone loves them. If you're a new client to me in the last couple of years, you've been getting one too, and it's a yeti cup. The yeti cup is in my hand, but for those of you who've already gotten the yeti cup, you're not uneligible, but you're gonna say, Oh, he gave me this color. Again, you can't see, and I'm not giving it away, so you gotta go to the video. But the the color in my hand is one of the newest ones I got, and it's a yeti cup. I promise, if you can see it on the video, it says it right here, it's a very genuine one. You can see the main color is what. And if you do write the right main color, write in the comments, whether on YouTube, whether on podcasts, or in the show notes here. And again, I'll do a drawing from those who got the right answers in the coming weeks, uh probably by the end of the month, roughly, right? So we're in May right now. So I know if you're listening to this in replay past May 2026, you're gonna say, Well, that's not true. Well, I guess it's not true, but it's still, you know, play along, please. Go see the head, go see it. So, what's the

Future Plans And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 20:08

future like? Well, interviews going 30 to 40 minutes. I'm gonna be boring with you here and tell you that if I do interviews for more than an hour, I cut them in two, because whenever I put an interview over 40 minutes, typically people didn't listen. So that's the aim of that. That's why I cut my interviews in half. So a little lifting of the I don't know, the breaking the fourth wall, maybe as they would say in different sports or in uh TV, that you're gonna be able to understand why I do that. But I think it's very useful to go shorter, so because that's what the what's the average commute of most Americans is anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes. I think that's like 90% of people. So that's why. And five years is a long time, but I'm hoping that I can do longer than five years. I hope I go the 10 years. And if you're new to this, again, like, subscribe, comment, give me a review and listen constantly. But I think that you know my passion for this. Anyone who knows me, may refer to me, go listen, see my my my passion for the first responder mental health stuff that I do. And so I thank you everyone for listening on a regular basis. Going back to interviews next few weeks. So I hope you enjoy those interviews. But I hope you enjoyed this solo podcast. But more importantly, thank you for everything, and I look forward to the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Please like, subscribe, and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to the professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, might need for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.