CAMBRIDGE, Md. — Cambridge city commissioners are considering setting aside part of the upcoming city budget to keep a full-time embedded mental health clinician with the police department, as the federal grant that pays for the position runs out in March.
The Cambridge Police Department is the only agency on the Eastern Shore with a full-time embedded clinician dedicated to its officers. The clinician, Sue Radcliffe, works inside the department to support officers and their families, as part of a broader push to break the stigma around mental health in law enforcement.
“If you want healthy cities, you need healthy officers,” Radcliffe said. “And this is one way to support the health and the mental health of the officers is to offer mental health services for them.”
City Commissioner Frank Stout, who brought up the idea at a recent city meeting, said putting city dollars toward the position would keep Cambridge from depending only on grants.
“We very much hope that that can be an ongoing, sustainable situation for our officers and for their families,” Stout said. He added that his goal is simple: “My hope is that we maintain Sue. That’s me. And that’s what I will advocate for.”
Radcliffe said grant money for mental health programs has been hard to find in the past couple of years, which makes city support critical.
“Having the funding out there is paramount,” she said. “But what do you do when it’s not there? And that’s why we’re really going to rely on our city commissioners to help support the gaps in the funding.”
Support after a loss
The push follows the sudden loss of Cambridge police Capt. Shane Hinson. Police Chief Justin Todd said Radcliffe’s presence during that time was invaluable.
“It’s unimaginable what would have happened if they weren’t with us,” Todd said. “I can't imagine going through experiences like that and not having the expertise of a crisis counselor. They knew exactly what officers were going through and how to handle it. And gave me suggestions for the next steps.”
Radcliffe said officers often just want to know whether what they are feeling is a normal reaction to a critical incident. A clinician who works with first responders, she said, can validate those reactions and explain what to expect in the days afterward, including changes in sleep, eating and thought patterns.
Why embedding matters
Radcliffe said being part of the department helps officers trust her. Being integrated, she said, lets officers see her as “one of us,” someone who is there for the good times and the hard ones.
She compared the role to having one trusted person to turn to without fear of judgment, which she said matters in law enforcement because of the stigma around mental health and a reluctance to trust outsiders.
Radcliffe said officers face higher rates of depression, anxiety, burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder than the civilian population. She said the average person experiences two to three traumatic events in a lifetime, while an officer may see anywhere from 178 to 800 in their career, depending on the department.
The stress also builds up. Radcliffe noted that Cambridge officers average four calls an hour and can go from a routine traffic stop to a report of shots fired within the same hour.
“That’s an enormous amount of stress on your brain and your body,” she said of the cumulative effect over months and years.
Radcliffe’s services also extend to officers’ families, who she said feel secondary stress from shift work, holidays on duty and last-minute call-ins.
“The families are the backbone of our officers,” she said.
Training and other uses for the money
Todd said the main goal is to keep Radcliffe on staff and fund her budget, and also to pay for additional training. He said state mandates on mental health training hours keep growing, and having Radcliffe in-house means the department does not have to send officers elsewhere to meet them.
Radcliffe said the funding could also pay for sending officers to conferences and holding conversations aimed at reducing stigma.
Stigma remains the biggest barrier
Dr. Heather Brown, executive director of the nonprofit Behind the Line, said her group was founded in 2018 to focus on officer wellness and resiliency. She said an officer died by suicide the day after the founders decided to start the organization, which showed them more needed to be done.
Brown said that when officers are not healthy, the effects spread to their family lives, their job performance and their physical health, and morale suffers.
Behind the Line has partnered with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s criminal justice program on a baseline wellness survey of Eastern Shore agencies and others. Brown said the survey was meant to show what is happening locally rather than relying on national statistics. Its top finding, she said, was that stigma remains strong among first responders.
“Part of this is really just breaking down that stigma,” Brown said, “that it is okay to take care of yourself.”
Stout said the city should do everything it can to make officers comfortable using the service. He described the goal of creating a culture in which speaking up is seen as a strength.
If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
