A telecommunicator emerges from personal and professional tragedy determined to give colleagues’ mental health challenges a voice.
By Lee Holmes
A voice for public safety telecommunicators hasn’t always existed. If telecommunicators have never heard the term vicarious trauma, chances are they have lived it. For Monica Million, it’s neither a novel term nor a novel experience. With 24 years of service in the public safety industry, her personal and professional story heralds empathy, compassion and a call for preemptive care. After 17 years in the aerospace industry, Monica Million became a telecommunicator in Grand Junction, Colorado, at the age of 35. “I went from one demanding profession to another,” Million reflects. When she started in 2001, the mental health climate for public safety telecommunicators wasn’t much different from 9-1-1’s inception in 1968; telecommunicators were expected to handle trauma, stress and high-pressure situations without structured support systems. “Mental health was hush-hush for my first 10 years in the business. You handled it. I handled it. Nobody talked about what was happening behind closed doors.”
Million powered through. In just three years, she worked her way up to supervisor at the Grand Junction Regional Communication Center, and in 2010, she became the center’s operation manager. But in November 2012, Million’s life took a turn when her husband became terminally ill.
Million’s husband spent years in the aerospace industry and as a nuclear ordnance mechanic for the Air Force. “His organs were shutting down from radiation exposure, and we were told he wouldn’t live out a year,” Million said. Up until that point, she describes her mental health as fine. “I had a level of resilience that allowed me to manage that. Did I have challenges? Yes. Did I allow them to overcome me and my mental wellness? I did not.”
But on top of her husband’s illness, it was a terrible year at work. Million vividly remembers the winter of 2012. “My staff were not their usual selves. I typically went into dispatch each morning to say hello and ask how everyone was doing. There was less enthusiasm than I was used to. When I asked what was going on, they shared that they were answering more suicide calls than normal. People weren’t calling to say they found someone deceased; they were taking their lives on the call with the dispatcher.” Million knew she needed to get help for her staff.
“After being in the business for over 10 years, you start to recognize the toll the job takes on you,” Million said. “Research by Dr. Michelle Lilly confirms that we have higher rates of insomnia, obesity and mental health challenges compared to the general population.” In 2012, “wellness was really starting to come to the surface for many of us. As civilians in the federal job classification mix, we don’t have access to the same mental health resources as our other public safety brethren. Our vicarious trauma and PTSD are often left untreated and undiagnosed.”
She contacted clinical psychologists working in the public safety field to understand what resources were available for her staff, and it wasn’t long before she became a strong advocate for mental health resources for the 9-1-1 community. But when asked if she needed to talk about her own mental health, Million said she was “fine.”
Million’s husband held on for over five years. She coped by pushing through. Million took on more leadership roles; work and service to the 9-1-1 community was an escape from what was going on at home. She ate, she drank, she isolated and when she finally took some time off work after retiring from her position, her husband told her, “I can’t tell you what it means to have my wife back.” On top of it all, this apparent failure to her husband began to break Million: “I sat there and bawled for two hours.”
Million’s career is defined by leadership and commitment to the public safety community, including serving in national and international roles. Million was also the first civilian and female acting deputy chief of services at the Grand Junction Police Department. After retiring in 2017 she became the executive director of the Colorado 9-1-1 Resource Center, supporting 86 emergency communications centers (ECCs) statewide. Million works relentlessly to equip 9-1-1 professionals with the tools and support needed to serve their communities well.
In 2018, after 31 years of marriage, John Million passed away. In 2019, Million officially sought help for herself. As a trusted voice that speaks for telecommunicators internationally, her story would now be heard. Million sat on the couch across from a 30-something-year-old female therapist who told her, “I think I need to make you cry.” As you might imagine, Million accepted the challenge.
Million has since moved into the private sector. She sees the opportunity for technology to help relieve staffing shortages and support telecommunicators’ mental health and wellness.
One such technology is Eventide Communications’ Critical Insights AI. It was launched in 2024 and trained on public safety data. With help from three AI assistants and Speech Factor AI, the technology allows supervisors to quickly find answers and complete recording requests, automate and optimize quality assurance and management processes, produce real-time and retrospective transcription with word and phrase spotting and alerts, and provide call type reporting and trending. Meanwhile, the system includes telecommunicator stress level reporting that clues in supervisors when telecommunicators may be handling too many stressful calls. This flag allows management to check in with their staff, offer support and direct them to mental wellness resources if needed.
“It’s time to leverage tech to do the mundane things. Without tools like this, we keep doing what we’ve been doing, and it’s not working,” Million said. “Tools like this are part of a preemptive care plan for staff. It’s a holistic opportunity to manage the resources at your center.”
Million will continue to support and develop training, advocacy and technology-driven solutions to equip public safety professionals better to handle their work’s mental, emotional and physical toll. “Awareness is key,” Million emphasizes. The American Counseling Association defines vicarious trauma as “the emotional residue of exposure to traumatic stories and experiences of others through work; witnessing fear, pain and terror that others have experienced; a preoccupation with horrific stories told to the professional.” When supervisors have tools like Critical Insights AI, we begin to give telecommunicators a voice. Remember, says Million, “Your well-being matters. Without it, you can’t serve others.”
Lee Holmes is a Communications Strategist for BeResponsive Media.
