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Mental health community partners with first responders to provide support for on-the-job trauma
BOARDMAN
When licensed social worker Sally Falasca responds to trauma, she knows that its impact extends beyond the victims.
Trauma might touch the dispatcher who fielded a desperate call from the mother of an unresponsive child. Or, it can reach the medic who injected naloxone when responding to an overdose.
That’s where the Critical Incident Stress Management team comes in. The group, headed by Falasca, is a partnership of the Mahoning and Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery boards. It is composed of mental-health professionals and first responders who intervene when a traumatic event occurs on the job.
First responders are particularly vulnerable to mental-health struggles. In fact, more police officers die by suicide each year than in the line of duty.
Inherent in that statistic is the nature of the work.
Nowhere was the dangerous element and stress of that work more evident than Saturday when four police officers were injured when responding to a shootout in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
“We ask a lot of our employees, and they are faced sometimes on a routine basis with traumatic events,” Boardman police Chief Todd Werth said.
Werth added that the dominant personality of many first responders keeps them from seeking help.
“In law enforcement, you have that strong personality of self-reliance. All those things we look for in our officers can also be a roadblock,” he said.
Complicating that roadblock, many officers learn to push down feelings, said Ilona Roth-Cohn, associate director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board.
In addition, seeking psychological help has historically carried a stigma at work, especially in the emergency services.
“It’s seen as a sign of weakness,” Falasca said.
CISM seeks to change the culture that puts mental health resources out of reach.
Pre-incident training gives first responders the opportunity to learn about wellness.
“We can put together anything,” Falasca said, listing topics ranging from dealing with the stress of the opioid epidemic to talking to your spouse about pressure at work.
The team is known best for conducting post-incident interventions.
Within 48 to 72 hours of a traumatic event, CISM will designate a team to conduct an intervention tailored to the event’s specifics. The team includes mental health professionals and peers of the affected group.
The success of the program requires support from department leadership. Fortunately, reaching out to the local CISM team after a crisis has been codified into local departmental policy.
“We don’t wait for something to fester and become an issue. I think the management-side is making the time, making resources available that we have here in the Valley and then providing that up front and then following up,” Werth said.
But, Falasa noted, participation often requires encouragement from peers.
“The whole reason this model is peer-based is we know that in emergency services, you need someone in your culture to relate to, someone who speaks that language,” Falasca said.
The peer-based model can work in various ways. An officer who has participated in a debriefing might encourage another to do the same when a trauma occurs. Or, an officer on the team might encourage others to join.
“Getting the word out. Me speaking with people, the chief speaking with people. Anytime that happens, other people get interested,” said Boardman detective Sgt. Chuck Hillman.
With Hillman’s encouragement, one of his coworkers attended a two-day training Falasca recently conducted. The training is made possible by levy dollars; team members volunteer their time.
“You have mental health working hand and hand with first responders learning each others’ language,” Falasca said. “That in itself helps break down stigma.”
Since 2013, the team has completed more than 60 interventions. And with more people being trained, the team’s capacity to help those who serve will continue to grow.