BOLO: Mental Health Concerns for First Responders

Rachel Murdock, MS, LPC, LCPC is the owner/clinician providing mental health counseling in private practice with Beyond the Storm Behavioral Health, LLC. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Missouri and a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Kansas and is a board approved supervisor for provisionally licensed counselors in both states. Her practice specializes in mental health counseling for first responders and individuals experiencing anxiety, mood disorders, or post-traumatic stress, and survivors of abuse.

Rachel does wellness checks for various first responder agencies to promote psychological resilience, psychoeducation about trauma and coping skills, and provide resources and referrals as part of a statutory mandate in Missouri (590.192), requiring all sworn peace officers and dispatch personnel to meet with a program service provider every three to five years.

Prior to January 2023, Rachel was a Supervisory Child/Adolescent Forensic Interviewer (SCAFI) with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Victim Services Division, Child Victim Services Unit and held this position for seven months prior to her resignation, which led to her reopening her private practice. From November 4, 2012, to July 3, 2022, she was a Child/Adolescent Forensic Interviewer (CAFI) in the same unit. Prior to joining the FBI, Rachel was a forensic interviewer at The Child Advocacy Center, Inc., in Springfield, Missouri.

During her career as a forensic interviewer, Rachel conducted almost 3,000 forensic interviews of alleged victims of/or witnesses to an incident. Rachel has studied forensic interviewing, children’s memory and suggestibility, process of disclosure, and trauma responses of victims for over 20 years.

Rachel has published on topics such as definitions of child abuse and neglect, the disclosure process in child abuse victims/witnesses, forensic child psychology, dynamics of compliant victimization, internet exploitation, suggestibility and trauma. Her manuscripts all appear in peer-reviewed journals or book chapters and Rachel has presented locally, nationally, and internationally about these topics since 2006.

Rachel has testified in state and federal hearings and trials during her career as a fact and/or expert witness.

Rachel is a faculty member with Avila University’s Graduate Counseling Psychology program and an adjunct faculty member Missouri State University’s Department of Psychology, where she created a course, Psychology of Child Abuse and Exploitation, and co-authored a textbook regarding issues of compliant victimization, dynamics of child abuse, process of disclosure, and other topics related to child abuse. Rachel has taught this course for almost twenty years. Additionally, she taught other courses related to child and adolescent development during her tenure as a faculty member with the department.