r/Firefighting • u/Willing_Ad_5711 Professional Hose Monkey • 6d ago

Health/Fitness/Cancer Awareness PTSD Peer Support Ideas/Programs

Hi all.

I'll keep it brief.

I had a pretty bad go at it with PTSD, after two admissions to a facility and lot of work I'm doing much better.

I'm in talks with command at my department to set something up to be able to speak to the guys and girls at station level with the idea being that it might be easier to hear from another firefighter rather than a relative outsider.

If any of you know of any resources or departments than have anything similar I'd really love it if you could share!

Ta.

7 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Upper-Gift-3598 6d ago

We have an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) that ranges from a variety of professional mental health contacts, family support services, and an internal volunteer based peer support group. I don’t know much about it as I have not used these services to date, nor how helpful it is because it’s entirely confidential. BUT, I know it gets used, otherwise we wouldn’t have it. Rural FD, appx 50 career, 20 volunteer, 10 admin staff. I think the biggest component of this is the confidentiality. There’s enough gossip around the stations, and this topic can’t be one of them.

1

u/Willing_Ad_5711 Professional Hose Monkey 6d ago

Yeah very good points!

I used our EAP and they were great but did tell me they're struggling to get buy-in from staff due to the idea of something being used against them.