When Scott Gagnon was fired from his government job earlier this year, he and his laid-off colleagues kept in touch to vent, comfort each other and share job opportunities. It quickly turned into an informal but crucial support group.
And they happened to be uniquely qualified for the task, having worked at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a relatively small agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It was very familiar territory for us to rally around each other, knowing that we’re all going through this trauma, being separated from jobs that we all loved very much,” Mr. Gagnon, 49, the agency’s former New England director, said in an interview.
Their ad hoc network, which meets virtually every couple of weeks, mirrors the way hundreds of laid-off federal employees are dealing with the stress and pain of abruptly losing their livelihoods as part of President Trump and Elon Musk’s slash-and-cut-some-more approach to reshaping the federal work force and government programs. Tens of thousands of civil servants across dozens of government agencies have been fired or have resigned since February.
The groups that have emerged in response are large and small, impromptu and more formal. They meet for happy hours in the Washington area, gather virtually and stay connected through messaging apps. For the most part, those involved said, the focus has been on helping people with similar expertise or experience navigate their next chapter in the private sector or elsewhere.
Getting laid off is difficult for workers in any industry. But federal employees, in many cases, sought out roles in government because of the unique combination of job security, benefits and public service. Not only are people losing their careers, experts said, they are losing a sense of self. Their challenges are compounded now by a job market where fewer and fewer opportunities are available.
“People who are in the same place, but are talking with each other about their networks and who they know, and what might be the thing in the field where they have skills — that is cool. That is absolutely crucial,” said Richard Price, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Michigan and an expert on worker health and productivity.
But, he cautioned, it’s best to focus on moving forward: “If they’re gripe sessions, they are poison.”
For Rebecca Ferguson-Ondrey and Drew Ruby-Howe, creating a support group helped them get through the initial blow of being fired from the Administration for Children and Families, which is also part of H.H.S.
Two days after they were fired in February, they decided to create an organization where fellow federal workers like themselves could connect and support each other. They named it “wellfed.”
In government, they held positions focused on the employee experience, working with everyone at their agency on well-being, training and development. Their job, Ms. Ruby-Howe, 38, said, was “to hold space and support our colleagues.”
In the past three months, they have played a similar role, but without pay and for people who no longer work in government. They hold virtual programs and workshops ranging from meditation to professional development and have nearly 1,000 people in their community.
The process has been a healing one, said Ms. Ferguson-Ondrey, 41.
“It gave us purpose in a time of uncertainty and a time of grief,” she said. “We were able to pivot very quickly to pour our expertise and our energy into helping others.”
Britt Jung, 52, who took an early retirement offer from the Education Department, has also found relief in talking to people in similar situations.
She said she participates in several small chat groups in a messaging app, the largest one having about 15 former co-workers. They talk about job opportunities and offer support.
Ms. Jung said she has found dwelling on the firings and the future of her former department, which Mr. Trump is trying to dismantle, less helpful.
“I kind of toggle back and forth between being in the know and trying to step away into something else completely, just for my own mental health,” she said. She has found that helping others by doing mock job interviews, for example, has given her a boost during this period, even if it is not directly leading her to a new job.
“It’s helpful for me to get out of my head to help other people and cheerlead,” she said.
Job loss typically brings up uncertainty, anxiety and worry, experts said. People can experience sleep troubles, declines in health, and periods of depression that make it difficult to seek out other jobs.
In the case of the terminations across federal government, people are seeing not just their own jobs cut, but entire offices shut down. The typical sectors where a former federal worker might seek a new job also face significant constraints because of Mr. Trump’s cuts to funding and programs.
“Just the scale of this and the unpredictability of it, and the lack of warning and the widespread disruption,” said Jonathan DePierro, a psychiatry professor at Mount Sinai medical school and associate director of the school’s Center for Stress, Resilience and Personal Growth. “These are folks who are deeply invested in public service as part of their core value system.”
Turning to support groups is a key way to get through this period, Dr. DePierro said, “to give each other the sense that they’re not alone. And that is some of the most important messaging that can be put out when people are going through a trauma, either individually or as a group — that they are not alone in their distress and uncertainty.”
The Washington region has been hit the hardest so far in the Trump administration’s indiscriminate firings and pressure campaigns to encourage workers to resign or retire early.
Jessica Smedley, a psychologist in the area, said she has seen an increase in inquiries from potential new clients in recent months. And it is not just people who lost their jobs with the federal government who are struggling, she said. She also hears from friends of federal workers who are worried about them.
“It’s such a profound, collective loss,” she said.
On a recent evening, a dozen conservationists gathered at a bar for a networking happy hour in downtown Washington. Most had worked for the federal government or worked with the government as a contractor, and all of them were looking for new jobs because of the changes under the Trump administration.
One attendee, Shira Yoffe, who worked for the Forest Service for 16 years, said she could not remember exactly how she had learned about the event, as it was one of many meet-ups she had participated in since leaving government. In the spring, after months of stress as Mr. Trump dismantled policies dedicated to climate change — her area of policy expertise — Ms. Yoffe, 55, decided to accept the agency’s incentive to resign and be paid through September.
Some similar events she has attended have focused on the social aspect. Other groups are focused on job searching, networking and figuring out what to do next, she said.
“There is a strong sense of community,” Ms. Joffe said.
Community was important to Kathryn Kullberg, a wildlife conservationist who co-founded the group, the Conservation Collective, that hosted the happy hour. She and the other co-founder, Chelsea Van Thof, met through a mutual friend earlier this year and hit it off immediately. They were both passionate about stopping wildlife trafficking, and both were looking for new jobs because of funding cuts under the Trump administration.
They knew there were more like them in the Washington region. The city has a negative reputation for being so career-focused, Ms. Kullberg, 43, said. Critics complain about being asked, “Who do you work for?” when they first meet someone. But Ms. Kullberg sees that as Washington’s strength, especially now. She and Ms. Van Thof said their network for people who are looking for work in the wildlife and conservation fields has now grown to nearly 100 members.
“All these people are looking for employment and all supporting each other,” she said as she looked around the bar. “That’s the best of Washington.”
For Mr. Gagnon and his former colleagues from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, meeting regularly felt natural because that is what they did when they worked for the government. Now, the topic range is a bit broader.
“To folks on the outside who are super supportive of us, they get the loss of a paycheck, loss of health insurance, those kinds of things. But only those of us who were in these jobs really understands deeply what the loss or these jobs, this work, means to each of us in personal dimensions,” Mr. Gagnon said. “So when we are together, we’re in a group that understands that totality. For me anyway, that is therapeutic. To have that shared understanding.”
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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