The Counseling
and Critical Incident Debriefing Center, LLC
Diplomate American Board of
Forensic Examiners
Diplomate American Academy
of Experts in Traumatic Stress
501 Iron Bridge Road #6
Freehold, NJ 07728
(732) 577-8300 ext. 1
Fax: (732) 577-9960
BIOGRAPHY
Stephanie Samuels is a psychotherapist that works exclusively with police officers in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Ms. Samuels has lectured all over the country on PTSD and the fallout from departmental silence after officers are involved in critical incidents and undiagnosed PTSD.
Ms. Samuels was featured in “Cop
Counselors” on A&E Investigative Reports with Bill Kurtis in July of
2001. She has been featured twice on
COPNET, a nationally syndicated radio talk show,
to discuss PTSD and the aftermath of 9/11, as well as, the need for educating
recruits.
Ms. Samuels began her career
as one of the founding teens of Teen Line Cares. A mental health help line for teens. Ms. Samuels recognized that teens only trusted and confided in
other teens. With this same concept in
mind, Ms. Samuels went on to create two
law enforcement officer hotlines. She is currently working on Copline Inc., the first National Law
Enforcement Officers’ Hotline in the country.
Ms. Samuels has created an
Officers Assistance Program for officers to use in both critical incident debriefings and confidential
counseling. She is the general partner
of The Counseling and Critical Incident Debriefing Center, LLC, which specializes
in debriefing and long term counseling of first responders and their
families. She has taught at the
Monmouth County Police Academy for the past ten years and has been a guest
lecturer at The FBI Academy in Quantico.
Ms. Samuels has authored a
chapter entitled “Police Trauma: Past Exposures and Present Consequences” in the
book Managing Traumatic Stress Risk: A Proactive Approach, Paton, Violanti,
Dunning and Smith, 2004. She received the President’s Award in Social Work
in 1999 for the legislation that she wrote to get a statewide hotline now known
as Cop2Cop and critical incident debriefings for law enforcement officers. She received the “Honored Citizen Award”
from the New Jersey Honor Legion for her contributions to the law enforcement
community. She has authored five
legislative bills in New Jersey and has helped get two of them passed. One bill was introduced in Pennsylvania that
would recognize a psychological injury as the same as a physical injury for the
law enforcement community. Ms. Samuels
is the author of the “Dear Steph” column for the New Jersey State Fraternal
Order of Police Newspaper. Ms. Samuels
got her Bachelors degree from UCLA, a Masters degree in Psychology from Antioch
University, Los Angeles, and a Masters degree in Social Work from Rutgers
University, New Brunswick.