Emergencies do not stop for the holidays, and neither do First Responders. As a public safety professional, working through the holidays while trying to maintain your family life, personal health, and social life may feel like juggling more than you can handle. As a result, you may find yourself attending more to one over the ..read more

Contributing credit: Chief Sam Digiovanna and Michael Berk As the holiday season approaches, the lives of First Responders grow busier. Between shifts at work and home life, there are many commitments to balance. Many have been thinking about their plans, who’s cooking, if they will be on duty, if they should eat both the turkey ..read more

Enhancing Mental Health Support for Public Safety and First Responders Lexipol, the leader in solutions that enhance performance excellence in public safety, is proud to announce a new partnership with First Responder Wellness (FRW). This collaboration aims to enhance mental health support for first responders by integrating Lexipol’s clinician and peer support training with FRW’s residential treatment ..read more

This article is courtesy of Patrick McCurdy, Retired Sergeant/Deputy. I remember as a kid marveling at the fact that I was going to see the year 2000, and the turn of a new century during my lifetime. Now, we are almost a quarter of a century into this new era.  Though technology is changing at ..read more

We all experience emotions and events that are uncomfortable, painful, or traumatic. Those moments or circumstances often cause lingering thoughts and emotions that must be dealt with one way or another. At some point, we may engage in numbing behavior to put off having to process unpleasant feelings. That behavior may look different for everyone ..read more

Many people are not sure what to do if they think someone they know might be thinking about suicide. Be direct. Ask the question. Let them know you care. In addition to this article, you can also watch a short video about suicide intervention. Go online: https://rb.gy/sky6k8. First Responders are more likely to die by ..read more

First responders make sacrifices to serve their communities, sometimes to the detriment of their own mental health. Mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress injury occur at higher rates among first responders compared to the general population. These issues can often lead to dangerous and unhealthy coping strategies, such as substance abuse. Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was a term initially used to describe the lasting trauma experienced by combat veterans. Within the spectrum of PTSD, some concepts pertain to certain circumstances, one of whi ..read more

Anxiety is the most common form of mental health issue in the United States, overlapping significantly with substance use disorders. The National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions surveyed more than 43,000 people and found that nearly 18 percent of respondents who struggled with a substance use disorder in the past year also had an anxiety disorder. There was an especially high correlation between substance use and generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. The survey did not include post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, which some studies estimate affect as man ..read more

A first responder’s work can be rewarding, but over time, it can also take its toll on an individual and lead to emotional exhaustion. This exhaustion can result from high emotional involvement, such as working with traumatized individuals in the community without adequate support.  In the emergency services community, compassion fatigue can often be thought of as the emotional exhaustion manifesting itself as the reduced ability of a responder to engage with empathy or compassion toward the person they are helping. It is the strain and burden associated with prolonged exposure of feeling ..read more

This article is courtesy of Patrick McCurdy, Retired Sergeant/Deputy. — Being a First Responder is difficult. You see and experience things on a regular basis that would send most people reeling in shock. Most people cannot even begin to imagine the depths of sorrow, tragedy, evil and darkness that you witness and deal with. Despite this, you courageously continue to go to the places that others would never dare to go, simply because you are driven by a deeply rooted sense of honor, commitment and loyalty to protect, save and serve others. Serving others, though, is not without cost and conse ..read more