Building a Bridge Between Professional Psychology and the Fire Service
For us to build that bridge, it's incumbent on fire service leaders and professional psychologists to come together so that everyone is "pulling in the same direction" to eliminate the stigma associated with firefighters seeking mental health services, to learn why firefighters are dying from suicide at a rate greater than the public (18 per 100,000 compared to 13 per 100,00), and learn why 20% of firefighters and paramedics will meet the criteria for post incident stress disorder (PTSD) at some time in their career.
Fire departments that provide EMS learned a long time ago--that for their programs to be medically, ethically, and legally sound--they had to have an Operational Medical Director (a licensed medical physician). If fire departments are to develop firefighter behavioral health programs--beyond the current peer support--for their firefighters and officers that are medically, ethically, and legally sound, they must have psychologist oversight in the form of a Firefighter Behavioral Health Director.
I recently represented Fire Service Psychology Association- Admin (FSPA) at the 2nd Annual U.S. Fire Administrator’s Summit on Fire Prevention and Control where Firefighter Behavioral Health was on the agenda. For a recap of the summit, check out this post from FireRescue1, ‘We must act now’: Fire service leaders spotlight critical issues at USFA Summit.
Unfortunately, IMO, the Behavioral Health issue was not presented with the same level of authority or expertise as there has been no psychologist participation in the work group that’s looking at the “big picture” of firefighter behavioral health. Most of the other presentations that you’ll read about were delivered by individuals with doctorate degrees and focused on the “big picture” needs that require resources (i.e., funding) from the federal government (e.g., community risk reduction, firefighter cancer, wildland fires and climate change).
Everyone from both disciplines--the fire service and psychology--needs to become informed and educated about what those needs are so that we can work to get them in front of policy makers at the national level. Begin your FSPA education by downloading the Position Paper: Current State of Fire Service Psychology, from the FSPA website. The position paper focuses on the following five areas:
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1. Assessments (e.g., Fire-specific Pre-Employment Psychological Assessments, Development of an Annual Behavioral Health Screening Standard)
2. Workforce Development (e.g., training more culturally competent clinicians who understand the unique needs of the fire service)
3. Specialized Training and Access for Fire Departments (Paid and Volunteer)
4. Suicide Intervention
5. Trauma Risk Management