Research Unplugged Episode 6 – From the Badge to the Classroom: Trauma and Leadership in Public Safety

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• Title: From the Badge to the Classroom: Trauma and Leadership in Public Safety
• Interviewers: Andrew Welsh, Tracy Woodford
• Guest: Dr. Jen Magnus
• Length of Interview: 32:27

SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING

This episode contains conversations that are sensitive in nature and references violence, trauma and suicide. Listeners may find the material distressing.

00:00:00 [Intro music]

00:00:13 Andrew Welsh

Hello and welcome back to Research Unplugged. This is the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences podcast where we interview different faculty members across the various programs in our faculty to learn a little bit more about the research. I'm Andrew Welsh and I'm joined by my co-host Tracy Woodford.

00:00:28 Tracy Woodford

Hello.

00:00:29 Andrew Welsh

And our guest this week for episode 6, and this will close out our very, very first season, is from our Public Safety program, Dr. Jan Magnus. Thank you very much for joining us.

00:00:39 Jen Magnus

Thank you for having me.

00:00:40 Andrew Welsh

And you just joined us. You just flew in today, didn't you?

00:00:45 Jen Magnus

No, yesterday. Last night we got in from Calgary.

00:00:49 Andrew Welsh

So, people listening at home, don't get too excited. The podcast isn't so huge that, we don't have a budget to fly people in for our interviews [laughter]. You're here for our convocation today.

00:01:00 Jen Magnus

That is correct.

00:01:00 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, And I know I'm not supposed to date the episodes, but it is in fact convocation today.

00:01:07 Tracy Woodford

It is. And it's a lovely day. We're not supposed to talk about the weather either, but here we are [laughter].

00:01:12 Andrew Welsh

No, we're not supposed to talk about the weather, but enough of that kind of small talk. We really do appreciate you joining us and we're really excited to learn more about your research. But I kind of want to just start it off a little bit about, I know you're an Assistant Professor and the program is Public Safety. I think when people think about public safety, I think their automatic go-to is to think about policing, law enforcement. Can you tell us a little bit about what else public safety includes.

00:01:39 Jen Magnus

Absolutely. So Public Safety also includes fire, EMS, border services, bylaw, government jobs. There's a lot of emergency management, pardon me, government jobs in Canada. And yeah, it's all of that. It's multifaceted.

00:01:57 Andrew Welsh

Yeah. So, who's taking the program then?

00:02:00 Jen Magnus

Really anyone because you can, there's an undergrad program so you can take it out of high school, but then there's also professionals. So, we have a lot of police officers, medics, firefighters. I actually had someone in the master's program that worked in insurance. So, I mean, really anybody can work or not work, but take the program.

00:02:22 Andrew Welsh

You kind of touched on this when you kind of outlined what public safety includes. But if you were to, if you were talking to a parent of someone who at an open house who's, grade 12, kid is thinking about public safety, what kind of jobs would you be, what kind of jobs could someone expect to kind of go into following, you know, taking that undergrad degree?

00:02:43 Jen Magnus

Well, a lot end up going into policing because the actual program is policing and public safety. So, we do end up with a lot of police officers or future police officers. So, there are a lot in that, but you can also, I mean, people take it to move up in their organization. So, there's a lot who want to be managers. If you're a police officer, maybe you want to be promoted to staff sergeant, inspector, and they will take the program as well. So really, it's a stepping stone and it teaches you a lot about policing as well as emergency management and the public safety realm.

00:03:18 Andrew Welsh

Okay. All right. We also want to learn just a little bit about kind of your background and academic journey. So, you received your PhD in business administration, organizational leadership. And before that, you got your Master of Criminal Justice. Can you tell us a little bit about how you went from criminal justice degree to organizational leadership?

00:03:41 Jen Magnus

Yes. So, the purpose of that was to diversify my education background because my undergrad was applied justice studies and then I moved on to a master's in justice studies and I thought, okay, I'm kind of pigeonholing myself. So, I wanted to learn a bit more about organizational culture as well as leadership in organizations. And that's why I kind of chose that route. And I know we can get into it further as to why I specifically got into that following my policing career.

00:04:18 Andrew Welsh

Okay. How did you make your way to our public safety program here at Wilfrid Laurier?

00:04:24 Jen Magnus

Well originally, I was actually a police officer for 14 years with the Calgary Police Service. And upon leaving that job, I finished my doctorate in business admin and then I worked for Bow Valley College in Calgary teaching in the Justice Studies program. And there was a job opportunity at Laurier, and it was Leadership in Policing. And fortunately, I had Dr. Scott Blanford saw my application package and he chose me. He said, you know what, you have, I think it was because my background is very similar to his, having policing, doing [a] similar doctorate. And he really, I don't know, he said, you were perfect for it. And the rest is kind of history.

00:05:13 Andrew Welsh

I remember when it was actually a friend of mine that forwarded me or a friend's wife who forwarded me the job ad for where I'm working now here at Laurier. And it is kind of, just so students realize, professors get really nervous too. I remember being very nervous and then, you know, really anxious waiting to hear back. So, it's always nice to hear that you're perfect for the world.

00:05:37 Jen Magnus

Yes.

00:05:39 Andrew Welsh

So, we want to move on, and we want to look a bit more specifically at what you do for research and your teaching. So, can you tell us a little bit about, you started your own business, Magnus Consulting Incorporated? What kind of work are you doing with your consulting?

00:05:56 Jen Magnus

With my consulting, I do workplace investigations, culture reviews, training in leadership, conflict resolution. And I also do a lot of training in trauma-informed interviewing. And that comes from my background in policing because I used to work in domestic conflict. So, I saw a lot of value in the trauma-informed interviewing. And essentially what it came from, I took training in FETI, which is “Forensic Experiential Trauma Interviewing” from the US. It was created by the US military. And I had learned in policing about cognitive interviewing. So, it's very linear. You pigeonhole a lot of the people that you're interviewing. So, whether that's the suspects, victims, witnesses, and you feel that they follow everything in a linear path. But essentially when you experience trauma, it doesn't encode in your brain in a linear fashion. It's very sporadic all over the place. And I remember when I was being trained on how to do investigations in domestic conflict, one thing that was said to me, if people change their story, it often means they're lying. But I later learned with trauma, it's because they're trying to piece together the traumatic event that happened to them. So, learning that I became very passionate about trauma-informed interviewing and I wanted to share it with so many areas. And so, I ended up creating a program with my business, Magnus Consulting, and training workplace investigators on how to properly do trauma-informed interviewing. And I actually, right now, I teach recruits with the newly formed Grand Prairie Police Service. It used to be RCMP and now it's Municipal Police Service in Alberta. I train them on trauma-informed interviewing. And I feel it's such a necessary skill that officers need because trauma is so prevalent in society. And if they don't properly recognize it, they're going to misrepresent whether a victim is being truthful or if in fact they just suffer from trauma.s+9

00:08:00 Andrew Welsh

You mentioned that when you were a police officer that you did, what was it, domestic violence?

00:08:05 Jen Magnus

Yes.

00:08:06 Andrew Welsh

So, in that context, if you were, let's say you have a victim, can you maybe just explain to the listeners where that kind of expertise and how to talk to someone with trauma comes into play?

00:08:17 Jen Magnus

It's very important, especially in domestic abuse cases, because a lot of the victims, you have to understand that they're stuck in a difficult position because they're often relying on someone who provides for them. So, it's not easy for them to just escape and stay at a shelter or take their family with them because some of them don't even work. And so now when you're essentially telling them, well, you can just leave, and they can't, it makes it very difficult for them. And so often officers will just follow that, “Okay, well, tell us what happened.” And now if you're very gruff with it or you feel that maybe they feel that you don't empathize with them or believe them, you're going to scare them away and they're just going to end up going back to the spouse or their partner that abused them. So, by showing that care and empathy and compassion towards them through the trauma-informed method, you're going to end up having a more successful outcome. Because honestly, there are so many times that when I first started, I didn't have kids at the time when I was working as an investigator in the unit. And I remember telling this woman, “You can just take your kids and leave.” And she's like, “Do you have kids of your own?” I said, “No, I don't.” And she's like, “Well, you have no idea what I'm going through.” And it was a wake up call for me because I was like, “You're right, I don't.” And for me to just say, “Well, just pack up and leave,” that's not fair to them. So just understanding that, you know what, they're not choosing to be in that abusive relationship. They have no choice. They're doing it for their family and they're just waiting it out.

00:09:57 Tracy Woodford

I was going to say with the trauma-informed education with the police officers, I think would be really good in cases where there's a distrust of the police services already. So if you're coming in with, like you said, empathy and compassion, that maybe builds that trust back with the individual.

00:10:20 Jen Magnus

Absolutely. And I can say like even on the front line, because oftentimes like the Calgary Police Service where I came from, they train the child abuse investigators, sex assault investigators, but the first line of trauma happens at the street level. And those frontline officers are the ones that need the training the most. And we often forget that people who are even involved in a minor fender bender, that's traumatic. Like they've never maybe been involved in that. And then for me as a police officer to come up and ask a barrage of questions, they're overwhelmed. So just to ask something as simple as, what are you able to tell me about your experience? Let them take you where they need to go rather than saying, what was the car that hit you? What were they wearing? What did they do? I mean, it's too much. It's overwhelming for people.

00:11:13 Andrew Welsh

How much of this training is, I know you're doing the training, but is this now kind of a common direction being taken by different police services?

00:11:20 Jen Magnus

It is, yes. A lot are finally taking it, but like I said, a lot will instead do it in the investigative level instead of the front line. And then I've heard that some organizations, it's a online learning program. Well, you can't, I mean, most people, if we do online learning, let's admit it, that we usually go to the end and say, yes, I attest that I did this, or they quickly read through it and they don't listen, they don't understand it. You need to do hands-on.

00:11:48 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, I confess I may when we have to do some SHERM workplace online videos, I might just click next, next next. Don't let SHERM listen to this podcast [laughter].

00:11:59 Tracy Woodford

That's our safety, health and safety

00:12:01 Andrew Welsh

Oh yeah, our safety, health and employment. I don't know what it's department. I did pass the quizzes they gave me, not the mandatory. So, the other thing I wanted to talk a little bit about, so I was in prepping for the interview I was talking with, I was taking a look at your biography, etc. So, in your work with emergency management, I know some of your work focuses on this idea of interoperability.

00:12:24 Jen Magnus

Yes.

00:12:25 Andrew Welsh

So, can you tell us a little bit about what that means?

00:12:29 Jen Magnus

So, the interoperability in emergency management, that was a course that Dr. Blandford asked me to create for the undergraduate program. And the understanding I had with it and the experience I had was working as a police officer and specifically during the floods, the Calgary floods in 2005 and 2013. What happened was we were stationed in an area of Calgary where we had to evacuate the residents because there was imminent flooding coming. So, we went in there and we're knocking on doors and no one's there and we hit maybe 20 houses and then we run into the fire department. They're like, “Oh, we already cleared that block.” I thought, okay, how come dispatch didn't let us know? Well, then you realize that dispatch for fire and the medics is on a different system than the Calgary police, and they're not communicating with each other. So, the interoperability is the fact that everybody works in silos. And so, you need to have that common communication link, especially when you deal with traumatic events or major case casualties, whatever it may be, so they can communicate with each other on a common system. And fortunately, we have satellites now. So, satellites allow us to have that proper radio system, because before you had to dispatch through the typical, it was like an APB type radio system. So, it's not effective and you can't communicate with each other. Like I know with High River where I'm from, the RCMP didn't want to be on the same system as the fire department. So, then the only way people were able to communicate was when the Canadian military came in and they carried this suitcase. I was interviewing one of the firefighters and he said, this military guy comes in with a suitcase and he said, I could talk to anybody. I could talk to fire, whoever. I asked for what I wanted and I got it. So, you just see how ridiculous it is that it takes the military to come in to now realize that, okay, communication is so important.

00:14:33 Andrew Welsh

And you mentioned fire services, you mentioned different, like so RCMP and maybe municipal, what other public sector or emergency management units commonly need to be interconnected.

00:14:46 Jen Magnus

Well, we're looking at bylaw. We're looking at the medics. So, paramedics, it's important that they all be connected. And then the dispatch systems, because often you have the police dispatch, you have the fire dispatch, and then nobody's communicating with each other. So, they all need to be able to connect because sometimes, I look back with the police, like you have bylaw [officers] pull over somebody and if they get into a really sticky situation or a difficult encounter, now they can't contact or communicate with RCMP, with city police, to get the backup that they need.

00:15:23 Andrew Welsh

Okay. The other thing I'm curious about is you mentioned the RCMP didn't want to be on the same communication system. Is there a bit of resistance then across different agencies to this kind of interconnectedness? Well, there can be, and I think it has more to do with the security levels. So, with the RCMP, they have a higher security clearance that they need, and that's why they're kind of like, we want to stick with our own system. And so that's why it makes it more difficult. And even I can tell you with following the floods, Calgary created a mass, like it's an incident command system is what they created, and they wanted to be able to communicate with Edmonton police. Well, Edmonton's like, “Well, we don't like the program that you've chosen.” So, then it becomes a, “No, we're not going to participate in that.” So now you've created that silo again, which makes it very difficult.

00:16:13 Andrew Welsh

Again, you mentioned the flooding. What are some other examples of public safety emergencies where interoperability is essential?

00:16:22 Jen Magnus

Well, right now with fires, like look at Fort McMurray, a lot of people in the town didn't even realize how eminent the threat was. And so now they're like, you need to get out right now. And there's lines of people trying to exit the city. So that creates it. Also, the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge. A lot of people didn't realize, okay, well, what are we looking for? They thought. they were looking for, initially, it was a female in a skirt. And so, then people are like, just the way the information is disseminated, it's so siloed and difficult. And whereas if people have a mass, like what happens is you can mass publicize out on your phones to people telling them this is what you need to look for. But not everybody subscribes to that app or follows that. And so, it becomes very problematic.

00:17:12 Tracy Woodford

And I can imagine with social media too, and then just misinformation spreading faster than actual factual communications.

00:17:22 Jen Magnus

Absolutely. And then people get confused. And I think that was an issue with Jasper fires is people were like, oh, it wasn't as bad. Little did they know the fires had already reached the city. And so now people are like, oh, I didn't know. So, they're trying to scramble to get out of there to safety because again, they're listening to social media and not listening to police or fire?

00:17:45 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, I guess in that vacuum, if there isn't official information, people will go and look for it wherever they can find it.

00:17:50 Jen Magnus

Absolutely.

00:17:52 Andrew Welsh

And you're right. Social media is filled with, it's actually quite shocking. Anyways, but that's a whole other pathway we can go down. What I wanted to look at a little bit now is I know that you focus a bit now of your work on kind of mental health with public safety practitioners. And you mentioned the trauma informed investigation. So, I think people are a lot more comfortable now talking about mental health. So, working in a university, it's a big focus. There's lots of student service programming for students to encourage them to access resources to talk about it. But can you tell our audience a little bit about the importance of addressing mental health with public safety workers?

00:18:31 Jen Magnus

Absolutely. So that's something near and dear to my heart. Working as a police officer, I worked there for 14 years. I faced many traumatic calls. And I remember when my partner and I went to a police shooting and we were involved; the suspect had stabbed his wife and mother-in-law in front of their four-year-old. And we were trying to get him out of the house, and he ended up eventually after hours and standing out, he came out and he was subsequently shot and killed by us. And just dealing with that, it was kind of like, okay, we're not going to talk about it. Like we're talking, this is in 2005. So, it's like, okay, this is just something police officers deal with. But there's a mass amount of trauma. And little did I know, my partner confided in me. He said, “You know what? When I was a kid, our neighbor was stabbed to death in front of me.” And this brought back that. So, he was having a mass amount of trauma following that. And I thought we need to talk to someone.

But that was a day where they're like, oh, it was a joke, it was a running joke that the psychologist is called Dr. Bonkers. “Oh, are you going to go talk to Dr. Bonkers?” I mean, and it's one of those things where you're like, okay, well, as if I want to be associated with this Dr.  Bonkers. And the only reason why you talk to psych services is because you were deemed as weak. So, a lot of people didn't seek help. But my partner and I, we ended up going and I mean, I found it helpful and it was something that I really pushed because I also had the unfortunate luck of or experience of three of my teammates ended up committing suicide over the years, not all at the same time, but it was spaced out. And it's due to calls like that. It's due to just the mass amount of trauma and difficulty that they deal with on a day-to-day basis. And so, I feel very passionate about it, and I want to get out there and officers and firefighters and medics to understand that it's okay to seek help, that options are out there.

Like my sister-in-law is a therapist in Okotoks [Alberta] and she says she sees lots of first responders and I said “That's wonderful to hear because I'm glad that they're actually finally seeking the help.” I ended up just recently, about a month ago, speaking to a high up officer with the Calgary Police and She said, “I don't understand why so many officers are on sick leave.” And I said, she's like, “Because it's the job.” Like, “How come all these people can continue to work, but then these people are all on stress leave?” And I said, “Because we all handle trauma differently.” Some people can compartmentalize it better, some people can deal with it better than others, but you can't blame someone for shutting down because it's just too much. And instead, we need to give them the resources and the help they need to be successful and productive officers. And I look at that like the highest rate of suicide is actually among paramedics because they deal with continuous trauma. Firefighters as well is very hard. And so, I want to understand it more and I want to help and try and push my research. That was another thing Dr. Blanford allowed me to create a course on public safety and mental health. And it starts this fall and I'm so excited because I was able to share some of my experiences in that course as well as tools and research that's working in the public safety area to help address that.

00:22:13 Andrew Welsh

I'm glad you mentioned the paramedics and the firefighters because that was actually going to be my next question is I think, the average person probably can kind of, it makes sense that police officers as first responders are going to experience trauma, but I think people forget about the paramedics and the firefighters. And I would wonder even some of the people that take the 911, the dispatch callers and things because that would be extremely stressful.

00:22:36 Jen Magnus

It is. And I can tell you with following that police shooting, we ended up all getting together with the dispatcher, canine and everybody else. And that was one thing the dispatcher said is she said, ‘The whole time I'm on the line with you guys and dispatching stuff, I'm worried about your safety. What's going to happen to you guys. And not being able to see what's happening.” And then when the shooting happens, she hears dead air because we're trying to deal with the scene. And so, it's like, “Are you guys okay?” Like all you hear is shots fired, whatever. And then that's it.

00:23:12 Tracy Woodford

That reminds me of there was a Jake Gyllenhaal movie about that. He was a dispatcher and I can't remember…

00:23:18 Andrew Welsh

Yes. It was on Netflix. I remember that. But I can't remember. I wish now I'm just blanking. I'm getting older so my memory isn't quite as good. Yeah, I know which one because it's the little boy and… We’re getting off-track [laughter]

00:23:33 Jen Magnus

No, I would love to… You'll have to let me know when you remember it.

00:23:38 Andrew Welsh

Everyone on the podcast can just look up Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm not even sure I pronounced his name right. One of the things that when you brought up the supervisor kind of asking, why are so many people on sick leave, is there still, is there a barrier still to talking about mental health and public safety?

00:23:55 Jen Magnus

I think there definitely is that stigma. I don't think, I know. I mean, there's so many officers that have come and spoken to me and they said, “You know what, I would seek help, but I don't trust the leadership.” Oftentimes what happens in these organizations is they say, well, we offer all these programs for mental health, but they don't do check-ins to make sure they're effective. They don't do check-ins to make sure they're working, that people are utilizing them. Instead, they just say, oh, well, look, we've got like 5 programs that address mental health and public safety. So, it's incumbent on the officer, on the firefighter, on whoever to utilize that. But if they don't trust the system, if people don't trust that disclosing their vulnerabilities isn't going to somehow make it and ruin their career in a way, then they're not going to take advantage of it. And so, I think it's definitely a trust thing between supervisors and the people, the front line, because it's often the front line that are facing the biggest challenges with mental health calls and trauma. And so, we need to make sure that we can bridge that gap and educate those supervisors and higher ups that, you know what, you need to make it more what would the word be, like more inviting for them to take advantage of those opportunities and advantages. Like really, it's paid for. It's paid for by their organization. So, if you have productive functioning people, you're going to have a better, stronger service. But you need to make sure you take care of them.

00:25:31 Tracy Woodford

Can you ever envision that being mandatory training?

00:25:35 Jen Magnus

I would love to see it as mandatory training, but then you don't also want to force it upon people that, because the minute that you force it upon, especially police officers speaking from my experience, if you force it on them, they will dig their heels in and resist it. Or they'll do what we talk about where it's just like, check, I did it. Yes, I attest that I did this. Whereas if you make it so it's supportive and other people word of mouth, like you get strong individuals who advocate for it, then you're going to end up having more people take advantage of it. Because like I said, I remember when I first started, everyone's like, you go call to call to call, you don't seek help, you don't do any of that. Because if you do, then you're a wimp and you shouldn't be a police officer. So, if you have senior officers telling you that, do you think you're going to want to go see Dr. Bonkers? Probably not.

00:26:25 Andrew Welsh

I think you mentioned it before. It's the perception that this is just part of your job. So why are you here? And the stigma of it. And a lot of the images we have of policing in popular culture kind of reinforces that kind of, you know, the tough guy image. Maybe less so than the days of Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. But I would imagine that probably still, like there's still probably a group of senior leadership that grew up like I did with that image of law enforcement and just aren't comfortable with feeling vulnerable for mental health?

00:26:56 Jen Magnus

Well, and they also carry that mentality. Unfortunately, they're retiring out, but a lot will be like, well, I didn't seek help. I didn't need help. So, you shouldn't either. It's kind of that if I didn't go through that or I went through a difficult time, well, then you should as well. But fortunately, the chiefs that were getting in, the management that are coming into these organizations, they have that understanding of trauma and they have that understanding of mental health and wellness because they also realize if you don't have people working, then the public doesn't have people going to the calls and helping them. So, you need to have a functioning, healthy, safe organization.

00:27:35 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, absolutely. like I said, it's big here at the university, right? And working with young people and I know like my son's in high school, he's friends with Tracy's son and they're more aware of things, I would say.

00:27:47 Tracy Woodford

Absolutely. Yeah.

00:27:50 Andrew Welsh

So, what's next? What kind of, what are you going to be doing next? Is there any big projects on the horizon?

00:27:57 Jen Magnus

Well, my colleague, Dr. Carolyn Greene and I, we are putting in a lot of grants to study the mental health in Alberta, just specifically with the public safety departments in Alberta. So, we're looking at a lot of that right now. We actually got a short grant two years ago to study the mental health with the homeless and drug crisis of police officers. So, the impact that's having on them. So, we're just kind of taking it day by day to see where the research draws us and I just love it. I love that I'm in a position where I can find solutions because sometimes when you come from a place like policing, it's so rigid that if you don't follow the chain of command, if you don't bring things and they don't like your idea, they just quash it rather than seeing the value in it. Whereas in post-secondary and working in as a professor, they encourage it. They want that critical thinking. They want you to open up those doors to find out more on the research. And I just, I love that.

00:29:01 Andrew Welsh

It is a lot of fun teaching.

00:29:03 Jen Magnus

Yes.

00:29:05 Andrew Welsh

Sorry, one last thing that just popped into my head. To me, it seems like in public safety and policing specifically, it just seems like there are a lot more different types of stressors than maybe there were 20, 30 years ago.

00:29:17 Jen Magnus

Absolutely, there is. Now everybody's being filmed. Whether you're being filmed by your body worn camera or you're being filmed by the individual on the street, and then you're being scrutinized. Like, look, we went through an era like this was... after I left policing where all of a sudden, they're saying “Defund the police.” Well, you can't do that. You can't defund the police because you need public safety out there. And so now they're feeling devalued, like, oh, society doesn't want us, but society wants you. It's sometimes the politicians are using it as a talking point. And so, I think it is, it's incredibly stressful for them, the fear, like even with fire and EMS and you can even look in our military, like they're suffering as well. And I mean, we need to make sure we take care of them. And we need to make sure as organizations and as people, we understand the trauma that can come with working in those very difficult positions.

00:30:13 Andrew Welsh

Well, this is really important stuff that you're working on. This is why we love doing the podcast and hearing what everybody is working on and what they're doing. Now, we have a signature here on Research Unplugged that we borrowed from, group chats at work, and that's the, whether or not you tell a dad joke, whether it's, I know you're online, so you're probably not telling it to your students, but maybe, coworkers, anybody, do you have a good joke you like to tell people to lighten the mood?

00:30:39 Jen Magnus

I am terrible at telling jokes. My husband tells me I always say it backwards. I don't know why. I'll get the punchline wrong, and he's like, you said that totally wrong. So, I just, I instead, when I teach face to face, I make fun of myself because I feel it makes light of it. And that just makes the environment so much better.

00:30:57 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, that's usually what I do. I just get my dad joke of the day from Google.

00:31:03 Jen Magnus

Well, do you have one today to close it out? Because I don't.

00:31:07 Andrew Welsh

What was the one I posted online?

00:31:09 Tracy Woodford

It was about graduating.

00:31:11 Andrew Welsh

Yeah, why was the audience at graduation so offended? Because there was a lot of name calling [laughter]. That's the other thing I'm bad at is I laugh at my own jokes.

00:31:21 Jen Magnus

No, but that's a good one.

00:31:23 Tracy Woodford

We either laugh at his dad jokes, or we rib him because they're not funny. We don’t let him get away…

00:31:27 Andrew Welsh

There's a lot of scrutiny on the group chat if I recycle a joke from a year ago. So, the people are actually, I'm being surveilled as well. Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. And the fact that you're here from Calgary, right?

00:31:43 Andrew Welsh

Yes.

00:31:43 Andrew Welsh

So, we really appreciate your time. I hope you enjoyed being on the podcast because we enjoyed interviewing you.

00:31:49 Jen Magnus

Yes, thank you. It was awesome. I loved it.

00:31:51 Tracy Woodford

I'm glad you fit in time to sit down with us and chat about your work. I know you have a busy day ahead of you. I look forward to hearing about your mental health and policing course in the fall. I'm sure your students will love it.

00:32:06 Jen Magnus

I hope so. Thank you.

00:32:08 Tracy Woodford

You're welcome.

00:32:09 Andrew Welsh

And for everyone listening at home, thank you for joining us. This is the last episode for our very first season, but we will be back with more interviews for our second season. Maybe we'll even drop like a little audio trailer or something.

00:32:23 Tracy Woodford

That was exciting. Yeah.

00:32:24 Andrew Welsh

Otherwise, thank you for joining us. Take care and we will hopefully not see you again, but hopefully you'll be joining us again. Thank you.

00:32:34 [Outro music]

00:32:37 Andrew Welsh

Thank you so much for listening to the Research Unplugged podcast. This episode was made possible by the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University and produced by Andrew Welsh and Tracy Woodford.

Original music provided by Kevin Byrne, Megan Shubrook, and Tracy Woodford. You can find out more about today's guest and the research in the show notes for this episode. Until next time, remember to unplug and stay connected.