Where Values Meet Reality: Peer Support and Police Partnership
A Note for Fellow Peer Workers:
This path isn’t for everyone - and it shouldn’t be. I’m not suggesting all peer workers should be comfortable working with law enforcement, or that discomfort with these systems is a failing. It’s not. We each bring our own lived experience, values, and boundaries to this work - and that diversity is part of what makes peer support powerful.
We also know we’re not the first to explore or engage in this kind of collaboration. We’re following the lead of others who’ve shown it’s possible to stay rooted in peer values while engaging systems that weren’t built with us in mind. This is simply the choice we made, grounded in our values, in this specific context. It’s not a roadmap - it’s a reflection.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to connect one of my peers with Lieutenant Mark Pieper from the Eau Claire Police Department. The goal was to let my peer explore the complexities of a potential law enforcement career with someone who had truly walked the walk. As a veteran officer, Lt. Pieper offered something we often promote as a cornerstone of healing and understanding - lived experience.
He honestly did a phenomenal job. I believe the conversation made a real impact on my peer - and it reminded me why we, as an agency, choose to partner with law enforcement in certain areas of our work.
I know that for many in the peer support world, the idea of working with law enforcement at all can feel like a betrayal. For people with histories of criminalization, systemic violence, or deep trauma tied to police encounters, it’s not just uncomfortable - it can be outright triggering. And for some, working with law enforcement will just never be an option, which is totally okay.
But for At The Roots LLC, it’s part of the work we do.
The first time a peer asked me to call law enforcement to our office, I remember wanting to crawl out of my own skin. I didn’t want officers in our space, and I wasn’t convinced they were the right people to help. But it’s what that peer wanted, and my job is to honor that. Period.
The officer who responded that day, and I honestly can’t remember his name, was unbelievably kind, calm, and sincere. He talked to both of us like humans. He didn’t push, didn’t escalate, and helped make a difficult situation slightly less shitty.
Later that day, when I was cleaning up the office, I noticed a boot print he’d left behind. My stomach knotted for a second.
But truthfully? His actions didn’t warrant that reaction. That feeling belonged to my history, not to him.
Around the same time, I was also supporting an organization working with survivors of sex trafficking. Through that work, I built a connection with someone who had been charged with a trafficking-related crime - as a buyer. Because of my own lived experience, I didn’t want to hear his thoughts. I didn’t care about his ideas. I didn’t want to humanize him. But the professional in me and my passion for this work pushed me to lean in (albeit very cautiously). What I found was someone I not only came to trust, but someone I actually liked and respected. Given the chance, I could talk to him for hours. (Seriously, J - if you and A are reading this, come back to Wisconsin and see our new office. I’ll clear the day. And there are so many people I’d love to introduce you to.)
Our stories were wildly different, but they had threads in common.
And because I stayed at the table, I got to see his humanity, not just his charges. That healed something in me while also teaching me something about my own bias.
When I found myself cleaning up that boot print in the office, I recognized a similar opportunity.
Not to forget. Not to dismiss harm. But to believe in people.
And to believe that being a peer means holding space for complex and sometimes uncomfortable truths.
I mean, honestly that’s what this work is about – the messy, hard, sometimes contradictory, and often heartbreaking truth of being human.
Neverbee, obviously being the best dancer ever.
Exhibit A: Lacie, our Community Engagement Coordinator, clearly winning.
Fast forward to today, and our organization often works with law enforcement officers and criminal justice related agencies to make our communities better in a number of big and small ways. From a dance-off competition at National Night Out (I don’t care what anyone says, dying batteries or not, our Neverbee was the best) to arm wrestling officers during training sessions, to traveling to Seattle for the Police, Treatment, and Community Collaborative Conference alongside the Deflection team in Eau Claire County, to building peer-led programs at the county jail - we’ve had the chance to work with individuals who care so deeply, they’re willing to risk their lives every time they show up for work while knowing there’s an awful lot of people who think they’re… well, bastards.
I know the roots of modern law enforcement in the U.S. are deeply entangled with slavery. I know history, and the present, include countless injustices, abuses of power, and lives destroyed by people wearing badges. I know that. And I’m not excusing it.
The thing is, there are people who do difficult work because they want to make the world better.
People who’ve experienced incredibly hard things in their own lives and decided they were going to try to prevent others from going through the same. People who look at all the broken pieces and think, I can do something about this.
Some of us wear Birkenstocks and call ourselves peer workers.
Others, as it turns out, wear tactical boots and get called things like Officer or Lieutenant.
Lt. Pieper told my peer and me that one of the reasons he keeps coming back even when it’s hard is because he knows he’s good at the job, and that in his heart, his intentions are solid. If he doesn’t do it, someone else will - and that person might not carry the same integrity he tries to show up with every day.
And I’ll be damned if that’s not exactly what I said when we made the decision to bid on the Deflection Program contract in Eau Claire County, which we were ultimately awarded in 2024.
I’ve had some hard conversations around that choice - with people in our own organization, in the broader peer support world, and even with community and government partners. I’ve heard the disdain, the mistrust, and the shock. I’ve heard the fear of exploitation, the concerns about abuse of power. I’ve sat with people who truly believed it meant we were “selling out.”
And I honor all of that. Truly.
But I see it differently.
I see it as an opportunity to walk the walk and live out our number one value: show up and do the right thing.
At the core of peer support is a belief that every person is valuable and worthy.
That healing happens better in community than in locked wards.
That lived experience should be at the forefront, guiding decisions that impact real people.
And none of that disappears simply because of how someone makes a living.
Wearing a badge doesn’t erase a person’s lived experience. It doesn’t make them less human. It doesn’t cancel their ability to contribute to community any more than being a sex worker, drug user, or felon does - unless we decide to treat them that way.
We know what stigma does to people who use (or have used) drugs. We know that shame-based narratives around mental health or high support needs do more harm than good. We know that sometimes people return to substances, situations, or relationships that hurt them because that pain feels less unbearable than being alone and unwanted.
That’s the very stigma our work is meant to dismantle.
So, it makes no sense to me - given everything I’ve lived, everything I’ve seen - to turn around and apply that same stigma to the good officers out there.
I’m not talking about the shitty ones. Fuck them. Seriously. They shouldn’t be in uniform to begin with.
I’m talking about the very good humans who are trying their best to do the right thing.
When we stigmatize, stereotype, and shut them out, we rob them of the very thing that helps keeps people grounded - a supportive community.
And when they lose that, we risk pushing them into quiet alignment with the awful officers out there who do want to hurt others and abuse their power. Not because they want to align with them, but because we’ve left them no place else to stand.
Let me be clear:
I still believe in accountability and systemic change - not blind loyalty to institutions.
I believe public safety should be community-led, trauma-informed, and rooted in care - not fear or force.
I still believe in and support the work behind Black Lives Matter.
I still know that, “Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.”
I still believe that the last thing most people need in a mental health crisis is someone showing up with a gun.
But I also believe we have a responsibility to build something better than what we were handed, not just criticize what’s broken.
Change doesn’t come from shouting across the divide - it comes from building the kind of relationships that let us cross it. That’s why we’ve chosen, in some instances, to work in collaboration with law enforcement.
Not because the system is perfect.
Not because we’ve forgotten where we come from.
But because we believe in showing up, telling the truth, and doing the work alongside anyone who’s willing to do it with us.
I’m proud, and hopeful, even, about what the future of that work could become.
