On Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019, the SCFP Spouse Association was invited to share our website and group with an Emergency Service Mental Health Resource Symposium in Leduc, Alberta. The event was hosted by Dansun Photo Art and sponsored by Leduc City Fire Service. The symposium was open and free to all First Responders and their family members in hopes to help First Responders and their families allocate resources to support mental health. Speaker topics included:
Post Traumatic Growth – Daniel Sundahl, Paramedic/FIrefighter, Artist www.dansunphotos.com
A.S.K. All Services Kinship – Mike Skinner, Paramedic/Firefighter
Alberta Critical Incident Provincial Network – Jennifer Martin and Jeff Sych, M.Sc., R.Psych. https://abcism.ca
Legacy Place Society -Diana Festejo https://legacyplacesociety.com
Re-integration – Sergeant Glen Klose, Edmonton Police Service
Strathcona Firefighter Paramedic Spouses Association – Katie Bickell and Elliott Davis https://scfpspouseassociation.ca
A wealth of accessible resources were shared and the SCFPSA is currently developing a document of notes from the symposium. Many of the speakers presenting also mentioned the need for spousal support or community groups within the First Responder Community.
Below is the speech SCFPSA Spouse Katie delivered:
On October 5th, 2018, a woman named Michelle Anderson stood behind a microphone and fought for our First Responders as she laid her own to rest. In a heartbreaking display of grace and hope in sorrow, Michelle imagined, in the darkness of her own reality, a brighter future for others. With shaking hands and strong voice, she pleaded for more windows of help. From the other side of worst-case scenario, Michelle demanded better access to a greater number of resources, fewer bureaucratic barriers, and lessened stigma around the chronic mental trauma that comes even more surely than a pay check with the kinds of service people like her husband and mine and yours give to the world.
And, I thought, if she was strong and selfless enough to champion my family that day, the least I could do was try meet her call the next.
One thing life is apparently determined to teach me is that no matter what it is I’m feeling – if I’m feeling it, at least a few other people probably are too. I knew if I felt scared and confused and outraged that a man as skilled and admired and beloved as our Lieutenant Darren Anderson could take his own life, other women – for our department is largely male – would feel that same insecurity regarding their own First Responders’ future wellbeing. Also, I unabashedly believe in the might of a collected community and in the power of love. Leaving Darren’s memorial, I overheard a couple of firefighters discuss Michelle with awe. “I couldn’t have done that,” someone said. And their feelings weren’t wrong – she was an undeniable force on that stage. But Michelle was still only every bit as courageous as I expected her to be, because to know Michelle is to expect nothing less. For those she loves, she is strength, she is conviction, she is the big-hearted warrior typical of all the spouses of First Responders that I know. A hero behind a hero. Her wisdom and eloquence on display, I left that church only more convinced that the partners of those in emergency services are one of our most powerful and underutilized resources.
So the next day I reached out to a few of the other department spouses I was connected to on Facebook, and I welcomed them to invite others they knew to a conversation. Could we as the partners of First Responders help open some of those windows Michelle envisioned? Did anyone else feel frustrated by the lack of educational opportunities available to us, did anyone else feel intimidated playing emotional ‘first response’ when the vast majority of us receive not even the briefest training on mental first aid? What resources exist for our members and for our families, and where were they, and how could we access them? If one of our families needed supports that aren’t available, how can we work as a community to campaign for greater assistance while honoring their need for privacy? Whether through rumour mills or media channels, we’d all heard stories of the careers of First Responders threatened by diagnoses of PTSD – just how safe was it for our partners to seek help? And what was the partner of a First Responder to do if they thought their loved one was experiencing active, acute mental crisis? The conversation grew to include about a hundred people and was peppered with far more questions than answers. We decided to organize into a closed Facebook Group to facilitate the conversation.
Our group quickly came to the attention of our Local Union’s Executive Team and Vice President Elliott Davis reached out to me. Elliott answered some key questions, set up a meeting to discuss more, and extended his support of our collective.
We were also offered immediate support from a member of Edmonton Police Wives’ Association, who urged me to contact EPSW President Tammie Hermosura. The Edmonton Police Wives Association is a community pioneering in the support of families of First Responders – they themselves had collected in 2011, and proved to be invaluable following the on-duty death of Constable Woodall in 2015. Over a three-hour phone call, President Tammie shared her experiences on leading such a group and gave advice on how to move forward. And with this help and the might of a collected community, we did.Here’s how:
Page: Join The Group
We quickly realized one of our group’s greatest challenges was communication. In the past, information meant for our families was distributed to our Firefighter Paramedics… but it turns out that First Responder email inboxes are where news goes to die. No one had hard
feelings about this – our members receive many emails of varying importance and between busy shifts and busy lives, they understandably fall behind in correspondence. However, inconsistence creates disconnection.Many spouses shared similar stories of showing up for a department event without knowing it was a potluck or missing ceremonies they had hoped to attend. Once I was pleased to learn the kids and I were invited to a family Christmas party, and then swiftly disappointed when I discovered it had taken place the day earlier.While these lapses in communication are forgivable, they don’t change the fact that so many of us want to be involved in our Fire Family and we often feel out-of-the-loop, even isolated from the community we thought would feel like home as starry-eyed newbies. As well as this, many spouses expressed a want to attend educational opportunities but there were conflicting reports as to whether any training like this had ever been offered to us in the past.
The first step in fixing this problem was to build an email list. We started by having Spouses contribute their contact information in the private Facebook Group. I opened a Mail Chimp account and compiled the emails into a list. This is essentially is how the Spouses of Strathcona Firefighters “join” our group – there is no requirement to attend quarterly meetings, participate in conversations, or volunteer – if the group only serves to distribute news relevant to the families of Strathcona Firefighters, we’ve met a need.
Page: News
Once the website was up and running, I built a news page. This is a page that allows for new posts to be added and archived. I connected the news page to the MailChimp campaign so that every time a new post is shared on the site it’s emailed in full as part of a weekly newsletter to those who have joined the email list. A sign-up form for the email list was then posted on the website so those who don’t use Facebook are still privy to news relevant to our community.We receive news and information from a variety of sources. Spouses share what they know and I shout out the information with a post. Our department’s communication specialist is extraordinarily supportive and Union Vice President Elliott Davis is excellent at passing along information on upcoming events, campaigns, and initiatives. Happily, various clubs within our department have started reaching out to the spouse association to request help sharing information or with fundraising initiatives.
Page: Member Resources
In investigating these many things, I discovered our union had already opened quite a few windows for our First Responders in the last ten years. Of course, this didn’t contradict Michelle’s sentiments or her reality – while I learned a good many resources existed, they were unknown to department families and therefore inaccessible. Still, these resources were valuable and even the mere knowledge of their existence felt comforting. I wanted to others to know what was available to our firefighter paramedics, and I wanted to honor the efforts of our union. With help from President Spence and Vice President Davis, we created a page to highlight the resources available to our members through Local 2461’s advocacy.Page: Members Area > Private Resources
Upon the creation of our group, we were also honored with a generous gift from Edmonton Police Wives Association. They trusted us with a lengthy list of individually used and vetted professional service providers who specialize in serving First Responders and their families. The Edmonton Police Wives only requested two things: that we keep the information password-protected to the public, and that we ask the permission of every service provider before publishing their information.Five of our Association members volunteered to divide the list and contact the providers, and in a matter of days we were able to publish the names and contact information and even add vetted private resources of our own. Now we have a lengthy list of vetted options for any member of our fire family interested in seeking therapy outside the department.
Page: Contact Us > Outreach Team
When forming our group, many of us expressed a sense of fear when it came to our partner’s rights to seek mental health support not because of social stigma, but because of practical concerns: we worry about licenses being revoked, employment threatened, and insurance payments being withheld – not because we believe our department to be unfair, but because these are simply the major risks any First Responder Family would worry about. We expressed a desire to support one another through any such possibilities. Surely as a connected community we could advocate for one another should such a situation happen.But at the same time, we were also concerned about our members’ rights to privacy. I hated the idea of Firefighters thinking their loved ones had collected to gossip about them when this was far more about information
seeking, community building, and communal healing. I hated the idea of feeding rumour mills even more – for someone to be courageously vulnerable about her family’s struggles only to have others irresponsibly share the information would be awful. In order to protect the privacy of our First Responders, the group immediately agreed that while sharing our own experiences were valuable, no intimate details regarding our members should be shared in open forums – including in our meetings and on our Facebook Group.How then could we advocate for our families as need be while protecting the individual’s right to privacy? And who could help a concerned spouse privately locate information if he or she felt uncomfortable calling the department’s disability team or couldn’t make sense of the information listed on our Benefits Page? How could Spouses share their family’s needs without “outing” their members’ experiences?
It was proposed we set up a group sworn to represent “problems, not people.” Families in need of support can reach out confidentially to these ladies and they will draw our group’s attention to a gap in service or unfair treatment without naming names. This group, the Outreach Team, is made up of two spouses from each platoon and is also charged with welcoming the partners of new recruits and extending friendship to those seeking greater connection. Many also have keen insight into our resources and can help counsel on allocation when needed.
Page: Contact Us > Union
And, of course, we also list how our families can contact our Union Vice President directly with any questions or concerns they have.Page: News > Categories > Education
A need repeatedly called for is for greater access to education for the partners of First Responders. As their spouses, we want more than the mere definitions and warning signs of mental trauma, depression, or PTSD. What we really need are scripts: what should we say or do if our partner is actively suffering? What behaviors or language should we avoid? What is the most responsible way to take action if we believe our loved one is struggling?And if our family experiences extreme symptoms such as self-harm, violence, substance abuse, or suicidal ideation, what *exactly* are we supposed to do? Who do we go to? Who will help us, who will help them, and how do we protect ourselves, our kids, our loved ones, their privacy and their career, all at the same time? And please believe me – even to us these questions sound extreme. These worries seem kinda alarmist, right? But then we remember how one of our own sisters found her husband less than six months ago. We can’t ignore these questions.
Unfortunately, education has been the most difficult need to meet. Reluctance exists when it comes to educating the partners of emergency service providers. Some worry that if we offer education on caring for those experiencing mental trauma, spouses might consider themselves responsible for preventing or treating the injury, or worse – they may blame themselves for missing red flags. And I know this fear is born from the same love we have for our First Responders as they have for us, but it is entirely unfounded. If educating families were ever a threat, why would we inform new fathers of the possibilities of their wives’ postpartum depression? Is it considered dangerous to teach the parents of teens about the eating disorders their daughters are statistically more vulnerable to? No, quality education only ever empowers. And empowered families experience less fear, stress, and volatility than those who feel ignored, ignorant, or unprepared.
This attitude is changing, but while new workshops for the partners of First Responders crop up, the cost to attend them is often expensive and for families factoring in childcare for multi-day seminars, that figure can easily double. And being priced out of the education we need feels not only restrictive, but also defeating.
Which is not to say I’m arguing for the unpaid labor of therapists and educators. Those who support our teams deserve fair compensation. However, therapeutic services should practice more creativity in offering our community support, and I have a successful example of how to do so:
In November, one of our association’s spouses, Courtney, wanted to organize an evening workshop. She asked a local psychologist if she would educate our organization on wellness in First Responder Families. Courtney let the psychologist know that cost was an issue and asked what creative solutions might be employed to get around the prohibitive price tag.Upon discovering that our department provides a generous therapy allowance to not only each Firefighter Paramedic, but also each member of their family, the psychologist informed us that she could label our group’s meeting as a group therapy session. This way, we were able to claim the cost through our often-unused Blue Cross Benefits while protecting our family income and our members’ therapy allowances. We also had older children to provide onsite babysitting in a room adjacent to our meeting space, bringing our childcare costs to zero. The therapist was paid for her important work and our community felt stronger and better informed on how to help our loved ones as our loved ones help others.
Page: GalleryCommunity.
Without a community to link people to our website, this space would just be another unused URL floating around in cyber space. If this website is to help any of our families, our families need to know about it, and that means our families need to share it with those who don’t. And that means our families need to intentionally connect.
It’s not enough to think, “of course I would support my sister if she needed my help.’ For someone to act as a comfort in difficult times, trust – through relationships – must often be built in easy times. And believe me, it can feel weird to be part of something called a “Spouse Association.” The name itself conjures in my head visions of 1950’s white-gloved luncheons that make me feel completely uncomfortable. After all, the individuals that make up this group are so much more than just the love interests of firefighters. But we do share these very specific interests and concerns and experiences. We are connected by high hopes and medal ceremonies and how lonely it can feel to move to a new department and know no one while it seems like your partner has a hundred ready-made friends. We’re connected by weird Christmases and platoon parties and our eyes glued to social media when ‘incidents’ unfold and we don’t know where our loved ones are. The partners of First Responders are part of a unique sub-group. We care about one another. And with the wealth of roles and skills we have outside of our roles as partners, we can make our community so much stronger.
In the last three months, members of the Spouse Association have created a website, hosted an educational workshop, provided childcare for other workshops on five different occasions, built a website for our department’s new Pipes and Drums band, held two planning meetings, and hosted a Christmas Fundraiser & Market to help our FireFit team send the Anderson girls to an upcoming game in which Darren will be honoured.We currently have a team of ladies planning a department wide family BBQ, one instrumental in an upcoming fundraiser pub night, and another developing a Fire hall Cookbook – again, in effort to send the Andersons to FireFit.
We’ve developed a Business Directory to promote the entrepreneurs within our department, and a Babysitter’s Directory to both support young parents and advertise our department’s teens. We’ve solved problems and built bridges and celebrated the arrival of babies and made friends and welcomed new recruit families and hopefully helped at least one person feel a greater sense of community or support. I think we’ve made our little community feel a little brighter after a dark time, like we’ve opened a window. And if all we’ve done is try our best to honour Michelle’s requests, that’s enough too.
If you would like to learn more about anything I’ve discussed today, please visit the site.
Page: Contact Us.
Thank you all for listening, for the services you provide, and thank you so much, Dan, for helping empower our families with this event and with all the work you do.