Finding the Helpers

In the episode Removing the Armor: Breaking Stigmas & Building Unity, we interview Dr. Budhrani. He has been practicing clinically for over 20 years as an emergency room (ER) physician, is the CEO of Innovation Health, whose goal is to unify the health care system making the patient experience more fluid and affordable, and is a professor at George Washington (GW) School of Medicine. We are grateful he was able to make the time to speak with us about the impact that COVID-19 is having on the medical system as a whole, and the mental and physical health of frontline health workers, their families, and what resources are available to them.

Dr. Budhrani explains how it is critical for health care providers to have a seat at the table when discussing what the ‘new’ world will look like when we think about going back to school, back to work, etc. He also explains how coordination of care is key. That healthcare industries need to share data and manage populations in a coordinated fashion to prevent the virus from spreading, and to inform the public health response for future pandemics, or a second wave. He says thinking of COVID-19 as ‘going away’ is a dangerous assumption, but rather thinking about how to manage and prevent the spread are going to be the keys to our success going forward. Not simply rolling the dice and hoping it will go away.

“Working on the frontline these days is like going to war, and a lot of these folks are built to contain these feelings and thoughts in order to do their jobs.” He explains how he and other frontline health staff often internalize their stress and anxiety because they think people will not understand. And that the longer this goes on, the more it collects and builds inside. Dr. Budhrani stresses the importance of finding an outlet to explore these feelings. He says there are two main things we need to do in order to support frontline health workers’ mental health:

1. Break the stigma. It is okay to feel stressed out or anxious, it’s okay to talk about these feelings, it's okay to ask for help. He says, “We don’t treat our physical health with a stigma, so why do we treat our mental health this way?”
2. He suggests beginning by using existing channels of support from friends or family. And then if further help is needed, he urges people to look into their Employee Assistance Plans which offer services for dealing with stress, and to remember that virtual telehealth therapy is available right now. That even with so much shut down therapists, social workers, and primary care doctors are still available through video chat or phone.

Read more about Dr. Budhrani's story and suggested self care activities from the Playing to Live clinical team inspired by his story on our blog.
Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at [email protected]. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, give us a rating, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.
A special thanks to Dr. Budhrani for his time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music, find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com, and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

What is it like to be a funeral director in the epicenter of a pandemic? This week we sat down with Sherry Bensimon, a New York and New Jersey state licensed funeral director, to hear her story of how COVID-19 is impacting her work and home life. Sherry has given her life to taking care of the dead in all possible ways. From the time she was sixteen, she was a member of the chevra kadisha, a Jewish holy burial group made up of volunteers from the congregation who wash and shroud the deceased to prepare them for burial.

Sherry describes how difficult it has been for her to do her job during this pandemic, “These people died alone and they are being buried alone. A lot of cemeteries are only allowing 3-8 people to be there. At least I’m there, but the people that should have been there are not. They’re not being given the love and respect they deserve. That is emotionally the hardest for me. How do you tell a family well sorry but your cemetery will only allow 3 people?”

Additional Links: Sherry serves on the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP): New York City Chapter, “I’m part of a wonderful, active, caring board. Our Director, Amy is tireless and focused. AFSP has real scientists doing real research on contributors to suicide and how to go about Suicide Prevention.”

Metropolitan Funeral Directors Association serves as the advocate for funeral directors, and the families they serve, in all five boroughs of New York City and the surrounding areas.

Read more about Sherry's story and suggested quick self care activities from the Playing to Live clinical team inspired by her story on our blog.
Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at [email protected]. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, give us a rating, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.
A special thanks to Sherry for her time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music, find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com, and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

“Just love people, be present, be real, be authentic. Those are the things that keep it real, keep us human, keep us in a shared experience.”

In our final episode of Season 1 on Finding the Helpers, we have an interview that manages to tie all our other interviews beautifully together. Mary Affee is a licensed clinical social worker, PhD candidate, and specializes in play and trauma therapy. She left her bustling practice in North Carolina to return to her original home of New York City for four weeks to be a therapeutic presence for frontline medical staff in hospitals as they faced the height of New York’s COVID-19 peak.

Like many front line staff and our other interviewees, Mary stressed a few times during this interview that she is not a hero. Mary’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 16 years old, and Mary truly saw this deployment to New York as her time to pay it back to the medical staff who saved her daughter’s life.
As we listened to Mary’s story, it was clear to us that with her clinical background, personal experiences, and the four weeks she spent working in New York hospitals, that Mary was not only going to help us share another powerful story, but that she tied together so many of the profound lessons we have learned through these interviews in the past four months.

You will find more about Mary's interview on our blog.
Thank you for spending this time with us. Thank you for listening and helping us share these essential stories. As this is our last episode for the season, we want to share that interviewing all of our amazing guests has been such an honor for us. As we look forward to Season 2, we will continue to highlight the frontline of COVID-19, but we are also looking to expand our focus to other situations where individuals are working tirelessly to support their community in need. Please feel free to continue to communicate with us on ideas for interviews. We look forward to coming back soon but until next time, stay safe out there.

Please with connect us by emailing us at [email protected]. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, rate us, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.
A special thanks to Mary for her time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music (find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com), and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

In this episode, we interview Joe Rojas on his experience of the prison system’s response to COVID-19. One of the reasons we wanted to investigate the prison system during this pandemic is because the conditions in prisons make containing an infectious disease inherently difficult. This pandemic has disproportionately affected people of color, and with people of color making up a disproportionate percentage of the prison population, one of the things we learned from Joe is that prisons are yet another space where vulnerable populations are disproportionately affected by this pandemic.

Joe has been a corrections officer in the prison system for 25 years, and is a member of law enforcement. He refers to himself and other guards, as the forgotten law officers. We realize that law enforcement is a very loaded term right now and is at the center of this long and current battle for racial justice. Joe is a big advocate for his staff and for prisoners alike, and one of his main missions is to make sure everyone in the prison system is treated and protected fairly by management. Joe tells us about the stress that COVID-19 is bringing to the prison staff and inmates, in what can already be a very stressful environment.
As our country continues to fight COVID-19 and racial inequities every day, we want to acknowledge how hard this time is for so many people. We have struggled to figure out how to proceed with this project in a way that values and prioritizes both battles. Our mission in starting this was to highlight people who are working to improve our world by caring for others, and in this time of great turmoil, the stories we have collected from those on the front line of COVID-19 will continue to add to a greater sense of healing and prioritizing of self care, and we are excited to continue to share them with you.

Resources for Suicide Prevention:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
EAP Hotline (for Prison Staff): https://www.bop.gov/resources/employee_support.jsp#eap
Resources for Inmate Rights:

FAMM: https://famm.org
RAPP: http://rappcampaign.com
ACLU: https://www.aclu.org
Marshall Project: https://www.themarshallproject.org
The Appeal.org: https://theappeal.org

Correctional Association of New York: https://www.correctionalassociation.org/about-cany
John Howard Association of Illinois: https://www.thejha.org
Texas Inmate Families Association: https://tifa.org
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition: https://www.texascjc.org
Read more about Joe's story, the resources provided, and suggested self care activities inspired by his story from the Playing to Live clinical team, on our blog.
Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at [email protected]. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, give us a rating, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.
A special thanks to Joe for his time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music, find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com, and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

In this episode of Finding the Helpers, we had the pleasure of speaking with Isaac Cosmas, a South Sudanese refugee who Playing to Live met while conducting a mental health needs assessment in Rhino camp, a refugee settlement in Uganda. Isaac was there as both a refugee and working as part of the frontline staff providing supporting the mental health needs of other refugees. In his interview, Isaac shares with us his story of struggle, resilience, and brings to light the hardships facing refugees during a global pandemic.
Of about 1.4 million refugees in Ugandan settlements total, about 848,000 are South Sudanese. Isaac describes the uphill battle the South Sudanese face when arriving in Uganda as a result of not being as exposed to the world and to education as Ugandan people. He says he brought one idea with him to the settlement, “We have to beat all odds. We have to continue beating the odds. The benefits of life that come easily, we have to get to the hard way. We have to turn it around to make it succeed."
The pandemic has made things even more difficult for refugees. Isaac speaks extensively about cuts in donor funding, lack of access to information, and the immense stressors on frontline staff. He also shares about how approaches to this virus that have worked in other countries such as the United States and Europe will not work in countries torn apart by war where most citizens are starving or at risk of severe malnutrition, as well as the state of their medical system and lack of testing.
Despite all of this, Isaac and his community are still pushing through, “We still have the hope. And we’re not losing the effort. But I’m quite sure that after this pandemic people will face more serious mental health issues than food and clothes. And it might even kill more people than what COVID-19 is killing.”
You will find more about Isaac's interview, links to resources he has provided about the situation in South Sudan and his non-profit, and the self-care activities from the Playing to Live clinical team inspired by his story, on our blog. You can also email him at [email protected] to learn more about his nonprofit (VEDO).

Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at [email protected]. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, rate us, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.
A special thanks to Isaac for his time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music (find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com), and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.