Chief Motes and Marie Gumá—Mental Health Lifeline for Clay County’s Bravest | S4 E16

SPEAKER_05 0:00

One day we had something happen that was not far from us. That was it. I picked up the phone and I happened to reach out to uh Marie. We had a great discussion about what we could possibly do for Clay County. So that's that's kind of how that happened with us.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Here in Clay County, I have the cat on my phone. I get the text messages.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

Fires are different today. Mental health is different today than it was then.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

We show up to fires, to you know, infant cardiac arrests, we'll show up to the hospitals or on scene.

SPEAKER_05 0:31

Another thing with a firefighter is if they get to the point where they're actually gonna reach out on their own for help, you've got one shot. If you don't capitalize on that one shot, you're gonna lose them.

Voiceover 0:45

Welcome to Respond to Resilience. I'm David Dashinger. In this episode, we'll be speaking with Acting Fire Chief David Motz from Plate County Fire Rescue in Florida and Maria Guma of Command Counseling Center about establishing and running a successful mental health program for fire departments. We invite you to like and subscribe. Our YouTube channel is Responder Resilience, our Facebook is Responder Wellness Inc. and Responder TV. We're on BBSradio.com and all the podcast platforms. And check out our website, respondertv.com, for past episodes and guest information. We'll be right back to speak with Chief Motz and Marie right after this.

SPEAKER_08 1:23

In this family, more of us die by our own hands than by the hazards of the job.

SPEAKER_09 1:27

In this family, up to a quarter of 911 telecommunicators have symptoms of post-traumatic stress. In this family, our mental health and wellness are in crisis, while responders are quietly suffering. In this family, many struggle with job-related stress, burnout, trauma, disruption, substances, and relationship problems. In this family, we can help the government.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

With vital information and resources, resilient strategies, and success stories of overcoming the obstacles.

SPEAKER_09 2:03

Welcome to Responder Resilience. We co-hosts retired Lieutenant David Dashinger, Dr. Stacy Raymond, and Bonnie Rimley, LCSW EMTB.

Voiceover 2:18

We'd like to welcome Acting Fire Chief David Moats and Marie Guma to the show today. Chief Motz has served over 33 years with Clay County, Florida, starting his career as a paramedic and volunteer firefighter, and later rising through the career ranks in Clay County Fire Rescue. Chief Moats has served as the Acting Fire Chief and Director of Public Safety since December 2018 when Fire Chief Lauren Mock was called to County Administration. Public safety is an all-hazards agency and includes 300 sworn personnel spread across the 640 miles of Clay County and 12 fire stations. Marie G. Gouma holds a master's in clinical psychology and is dedicated to addressing the psychological needs of first responders. She responded during the Marjorie Stoneman-Douglas high school shooting tragedy as a member of the clinician response team for Coral Springs Parkland Fire Rescue. Following a call to action from IAFF local 1891 in Boynton Beach, following the untimely passing of a revered firefighter, Marie established the Command Counseling Center, CCC, to provide mental health services for first responders. CCC quickly expanded its reach, securing contracts with departments across Florida. Chief Motes and Marie, welcome to Respond to Resilience. So I just want to paint a picture so we get an idea of the response area and the scope of what CCFR does. Chief, can you describe the staffing and operations and then talk a little bit about the growth that the county is experiencing as well?

SPEAKER_05 3:55

Absolutely. Clay County over the last several years has had just a really rapid growth from kind of the Clay County of old, mainly because we have an interstate coming through the county. We're projected to gain over a hundred thousand people over about the next 10 to 20 years. We're seeing a huge inf that seems to be front loaded. Seems to be a huge impact of that coming now. We, as you said, have about 640 square miles. So we just uh cover everything from a suburban uh to a rule setting. And uh just under 300 employees. We do have emergency management, communications under us, logistics, um, and all those functions that would incorporate an all-hazard system.

Voiceover 4:39

So, Marie, how does the Clay County Fire Rescue and the Command Counseling Mental Health Services Program work?

SPEAKER_03 4:46

So it actually all started in 2015. Um, Kibiscayne Fire Rescue was seeing a 200% increase in mental health calls and Narcan use. Um, I was currently working in the uh inpatient treatment center at the time. My sister lived on Kibiscayne, was very good friends with Chief Lang, the fire chief. So we started doing a lot of community work, uh, educating families, kids. Um from there, Miramar Fire Rescue uh called. Um they saw that I was working or volunteering helping Kibiscayne, and they called and said, Will you help us build a peer support team? And I said, I don't know what that is, but sure, I I'll I will help you. Um so since 2016, um was pretty integrated into the department as a resource. Uh luckily I had an amazing mentor I worked with and for a company that would allow me to leave whenever a fire police department needed any um, you know, an intervention or any type of clinical consulting. Um I then did the Florida Firefighter Safety and Health Collaboratives um clinician awareness training. It was a two-day training for therapist to understand the culture. And I fell in love. Um I fell in love with the culture, I fell in love with um the firefighters that were uh you know putting that clinician awareness on. Uh, so many light bulbs went off, so many things that I never really questioned. Um I began to question, for example, um like, oh, first responders are affected by the things that they see. Um, you know, things that the general public may not think about because when we're calling 911, we're calling on our worst day, we're not thinking it's affecting them, it's their job, they're used to it, you know, like we don't even think about it. So um started going to conferences, uh, went to any mental health first responder thing that I could get my hands on, traveled um, you know, throughout the United States just to get that information and uh created what I felt was the epitome of what was truly needed, best practice, um, thought it would never ever fluition because it went against everything that was already in place, which was obviously not working when you had uh you know double suicide rates to line of duty deaths in both um law enforcement and and fire rescue. So um it didn't make any sense what we were doing. So I knew something different needed to be created. So initially it was a passion project. Uh in 2019, um Alvis Fernandez um took his own life from um uh Boyton Beach Fire Rescue, and uh I did the station visits along with the IFF uh peer supporters, and um it was a 30-minute drive for me, so I you know volunteered and the union president said, you know, after those three days, Marie, we need you here and um put it together so that the you know the the powers at be for Boyton Beach um would accept this, and it went into full effect. It was a $30,000 contract. I had a full-time job making, you know, a great living. So for me it was what can I do with these $30,000 to give to the firefighters to the department. Um I had already with the collaborative been training uh therapists in the culture throughout the state of Florida. So I knew the great therapists in that area, subcontracted with them and brought them on board and you know, gave them certain uh prew prerequisites that they had to sign to adhere to, for example, call within 24 hours, see them within 48 hours if they um requested it, uh, you know, all the things that that I thought were not being done through the EAP system. And uh every single you know penny went to the therapists, and luckily we didn't have anybody else retiring or anybody else from that department uh, you know, slip through that rabbit hole that we all know exists.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

And to survive the career with a sense of longevity that you don't crawl across the finish line, that you sprint across, you've got to know what you stand for.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Knowing that we have additional stressors, that means we have to take on the responsibility of making ourselves more resilient.

SPEAKER_06 9:35

And on game day, we must succeed as a team. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.

SPEAKER_08 9:43

Superhero origin stories, they're all stories of post-traumatic growth. You're like the Hulk that's been exposed to gamma radiation, and now you have the super ability because of that trauma you've experienced.

SPEAKER_07 9:55

Before you became a firefighter paramedic in EMT, whatever it is, you were human. Start off as human, that he was gonna take care of, and then we can take care of other people.

Voiceover 10:10

You touched on a few things I wanted to just use to preface this next question for Chief Motz. Um these are some stats out there. You mentioned some of this, and and we're probably very well aware of this. But for someone who's listening, perhaps not in the first responder world, I just wanted to put these out there. Um it's estimated that the typical person will see one to two traumatic events in their lifetime, but first responders will see more than 800 such traumatic events. And um on the suicide rates, National Fallen Firefighters Foundation estimates there are between 100 and 200 firefighter deaths by suicide each year. That's double the rate of the general population. Chief, what have you seen in the fire service that sparked this initiative to start a mental health program?

SPEAKER_05 11:00

So, having been around a few years now, um, I I will I will absolutely say that early on in my career, um, there really wasn't a whole lot of awareness of it. Um it's kind of striking considering when you look at our brothers and sisters in the military and you know, kind of what they've gone through and and and what they go through when they come back. Uh shouldn't be surprising uh that again we do go to people's worst day. Um personally, I had to look at this both personally and professionally. Um, I used to not have a problem, for instance, going to uh to children or young kids. I didn't have any kids. Uh when I had kids, I was I was absolutely shocked at the change uh in me, as to the point that I I wondered, am I gonna be able to continue to do this job? I've I've got to I've got to operate in a certain way. And if I can't operate in that way, can I continue to go on?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Right.

SPEAKER_05 11:57

Uh so as as life kept going on, the fire service, you know, we we we really worked hard on health and and and our heart and lung problems, those type of issues, and then came along cancer. Uh you know, we recognize that a lot of firefighters are dying from cancer. And I don't know if if I don't know, Maria will probably be able to say the numbers. I don't know if it's the fact that it's increased. I don't know if it's the fact that we have so much more of an ability to know what's going on in the world now. Uh, but several other colleagues of mine started to really notice the mental health and how it was affecting the firefighters and quite frankly, the uh the suicide rates that were going on. And then we suffered some right here, very, very close to home. Uh as that happened, I I had a very proactive group in my training division that literally just kept pulling on my coattails. And I've got a general saying for them that yes, we can all get busy as administrators, but there's nothing more important to us than our employees. And I've told them before, if you think something is that important, you need to stay in front of me. And you need to continue to just to to put it in front of me until I listen. And uh one day we had something happen that was not far from us. Um, I believe it was Marion County, uh, if I'm not mistaken. And that was it. I picked up the phone and I happened to reach out to uh Marie, and she was gracious enough. This was outside of ours, this was just kind of impromptu, and uh, we had a great discussion about uh what we could possibly do for Clay County. So that's that's kind of how that happened with us. But on the other side of that, and I don't not to take over too long, we had people all the time. We have EAP, right? Every system has EAP. I uh I had a lot of feedback from my firefighters that some good, some bad, but it really depended on what they were going to them for because they provide a lot of services, but when they were going to them specifically uh for uh events that they were going to, I I I'll quote one of them and say, I I think the therapist needed therapy by the time I got through talking to them. They were literally were were taken back at what they were hearing, quite frankly, didn't know what to do with it. Um, so from there and and another thing with a firefighter is if they're if they get to the point where they're actually gonna reach out on their own for help, you you've got one shot. And if you don't if you don't capitalize on that one shot, um then you're you're gonna lose them. They're gonna go off on their own mechanisms, they're gonna do other things, and and you know, and Lord Lord knows what prep what path they're gonna go down. So I was somewhat desperate to go out and say, we need something that is more generated towards us, and we had asked for it for years. It just quite frankly, it wasn't administration's fault for not doing it, even though I'm part of administration, it was that it wasn't out there. So that was that therein lied the problem.

Voiceover 14:58

You touched on a couple of things, Chief. I'd love for Marie to pick up on that, and that's um culturally competent clinicians and the fact that time is of the essence when a firefighter or first responder is at that point where they need help. So, Marie, um, how does the CCFR Command Counseling Mental Health Services program work? And talk a little bit about how the members access those services.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yes, so we have um two different, I guess, two different branches of services that we offer. Um, the one we've talked about are uh the culturally competent therapists. So we have all of our therapists are what we NFPA 1500 compliant, which means they are trauma certified and informed and understand the culture. Um, they understand the culture because they've either gone through the, you know, the Florida Firefighter Safety and Health Collaboratives training, um, some form of training, but they've also integrated in the department um and they've also attended, you know, some regular, I guess, cultural things that um I teach them every so often, especially when something new comes up um regarding the culture and psychology. You know, I always bring it up to um to all of the therapists. We're on a big WhatsApp chat, so we exchange a lot of information there. Um, and then now we've all done the uh clinician training through the IFF as well. So um, which had you know some some new things even for me. I think I took the quiz just to see how much I knew and I got an 80% um before doing the the course. So um I did learn some things so especially about the the trucks and which ones you know the the differences in the trucks, but very important. Yes, yeah, it is, it is. Um and the the great thing about being a culturally competent therapist, and for example, here in Clay County, um I have the cat on my phone, I get the text messages, we show up um to fires, to you know, infant cardiac arrests, we'll show up to the hospitals um or on scene. And a lot of times what we're seeing as a therapist, we can actually use to connect with a firefighter um very quickly. So before I go on that rant, um, I'll tell you about CCC. So um the culturally competent therapist, obviously extremely important. Um what we were hearing from you know the services that the departments had already in place was there was no sense of urgency. Um there was a just a 1-800 number that would just, you know, they never were able to talk to somebody, and then when they finally did, it wasn't even an EAP that covered their insurance, and they'd have to do it all over again if they even had you know the stamina to keep going. Um so sense of urgency, very, very important. So um and we cover that also with critical incidences on the other branch. But in this branch, um, they have to see call, get an appointment within 24 hours, see them within 48 if they're requesting it or sooner. That's in place. The other branch that we do is um more of education. So when we contract, we'll do mental health classes um for the department, uh, for the entire department. We do um critical incidents, so we have the role of what's called the behavioral health manager. So the behavioral health manager is what I think truly the huge differentiator between what we do and any other integrated mental health program within the first responder industries. That behavioral health manager is an experienced mental health provider, um, but they and culturally competent, of course, um, but they do not do any therapy within that department. What they become is an integrated resource, trusted resource that has established um rapport with the hopefully the entire department enough that if that person has a question, all they have to do is send a text message. They don't even have to identify who they are. So that person is on call 24-7-365 for the entire department and their family. Um they're the ones who will coordinate um, you know, therapists if that's what's needed. They show up to critical incidences within an hour, um, station visits, monthly station visits, even if they just pop their head in and you know say hi, just to keep remembering, you know, reminding the firefighters, we're here, we're here for you. Um, you know, that's extremely important. I think that that role becomes so integrated that um it reduces the the stigma and gives the resources right there, right there for them. Um and they've built trust. The other thing on the mental health, on the therapist side that we do that is completely different is that we try to contract with the departments so that the county is now paying for the insurance for the therapy as opposed to going through insurance. So command counseling as a company, we do not accept insurance. Um, because like I said, we built a program with um absolutely everything that was needed, um, even though we thought it would never, you know, fruition, which one of those things was not to go through insurance because that way invoices are not going to HR, or if you are a health trust, they're not going with your name and diagnoses. So it's not we're truly HIPAA compliant. The other thing is that when we meet with the chiefs of any department or anyone that's interested, we let them know whatever your firefighters, your police officers, your dispatchers, you know, your correctional officers say to us, we are never going to report back to you.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

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SPEAKER_03 22:19

What we do is we um try to establish very uh strong communication lines with the union, and then we encourage that person to then reach out to the union so that then the union goes about um you know informing administration as they're supposed to. Um that way we guarantee that our firefighters, police officers, and the first responders um uh tell us everything that is going on with them so that we're able to help them uh completely and not just bits and pieces of you know what's kind of happening but not really truly happening.

Voiceover 22:58

I love the foundation you've built, um, especially the piece about trust and and having one person as sort of the the point of contact. Um so I want to go a little deeper into that. Um Chief, talk a little bit about the keys to success of this program and Part B is um a little bit about the access that clinicians have in terms of um Marie mentioned some of that, but um if there is a critical incident, uh how does that work in terms of notifications and access for clinicians?

SPEAKER_05 23:28

So you picked up on a word, the same word I picked up on. Um she put it in there, but uh in the fire service, it's all about trust, right? Um it's it's you've got to, no different than your first day on a fire truck, um, you're you're not automatically accepted, right? You have to get in there and you, you know, you kind of earn your way, and the crew uh at some point they take you into that family, and then there is that trust. And the key to this working uh really was that. So we started out and it happened to be a Marie and I, and we went out and hit as many stations as we could hit. I only did that to say that you know our firehouses are their houses, and you know, they're kind of used to that, and to have somebody come in, it's almost like it I would liken it to introducing them to a new employee, because that's really what it was. So when they came, when I when it came in the door and I uh introduced her to them, um we had you talk about the keys to success. Uh they were told very clearly that they're to be treated like like other employees. They have their own credentials, they have access to the stations, they can come eat with them, they can go on calls with them, they're already compliant with uh the our HIPAA regulations. So they were onboarded like a like an employee, um, but then presented as more of a professional big brother, big sister uh to their organization, that no different than the medical director's the medical director or the engineer's the engineer. This person's job is, and and she is right, it is the key. That embedded person in the system that kind of does that 24-7, that that looks just like any of your your other regular employees, um, and has that sort of access, that's the key. It really is. Um, we put them on our so every fire department for the most modern fire departments have a paging system that automatically allows command staff to know about bad calls that are going on or certain types of calls.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Right.

SPEAKER_05 25:33

Uh we immediately integrated into the them into that same thing because again, they have a they have a piece of that function. But then this kind of led into a part that where you have the anonymity of uh when Marie first approached me with this, she said, Look, I I want to get all of their personal email addresses. And at this point, uh, what they did was is they kind of did that on their own. So, in other words, I didn't reach out to the department and say, hey, give me this, I'm gonna give it to them. No, they did that and they developed that relationship on their own, and it truly allowed them to understand that um their administration uh they can they reach out to us and us hook them up with them? Absolutely. Does that happen impromptu sometimes because we see something no different than any other employee could see something of another employee and and make that happen as well? Um, but they can also do it themselves. They can not only do it for themselves, but they can do it, they may be having a uh not just problems on the job, they may be having problems at home, they may be having problems with addiction, but but but you're dealing with culturally competent people that kind of understand where you're coming from, and no different than they may be dealing with the spouse, right? So they kind of understand what that spouse deals with with that firefighter or with that police officer because they are culturally competent. So it um it did kind of amaze me that when Marie first came in, it obviously wasn't her first fire station she'd ever been in. Um, so she was able to pretty quickly uh meld in with the crews, and we did put something out system-wide also because we obviously couldn't, we're we're a decent-sized department trying to hit everybody. Uh, but uh pretty quickly they they everybody knew uh who they were and what their role was. And then they kind of went off and developed those relationships on their own. Uh I think a couple things that that uh that they do also every year is they make sure that they hit every single employee at least once every year. So it's not just on the bad calls, it's not just on the impromptu, hey, what y'all doing today? I'm gonna stop by type of thing. But you still somebody can slip through the cracks, right? So they they they do get out there and make sure that they they reach every employee. Uh we've started to build our peer system and they're working you know hand in hand with them. And then as that group becomes more and more and more established, um, then you know we kind of grow that branch out and able to break up some of the work because we get quite a few calls per year, and I don't know what it is, it just seems like some of them calls lately have been extremely tough. Um, so I think I hit on everything that you were that you were asking about there, but going back to those keys to success, treat them just like an employee, make them like an employee, and give them the credentials like an employee. Because we all know on those bad situations, our brothers in green or blue are gonna stop them at the line and they're not moving from that point forward. So rather than having to go through and make that happen, no, they are a lot of our police officers kind of know who they are at this point. And if they don't, all they can do is show them their badge, say who they're with, and they come on through just like our PIOs or anybody else does. So that's really been key to making this work and the and the anonymity that allows them to work one-on-one with those employees outside of the system has been the keys to success.

Voiceover 29:01

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SPEAKER_03 30:18

Yes. So like uh Chief Motz was saying, we also do the our yearly, we call them yearly screenings. Um so we do meet with every single person um in the department one-on-one, um, mostly to you know, continue to build that rapport, um, give them an opportunity to sit down with a mental health provider, um, even though it's a um, it's not like an official meeting, it's more relaxed. Um, but we want them to again break that stigma of like, oh, you know, I've never sat in front of a mental health, you know, person. And I say to them, well, you just did. Um, oh, okay, is that what it's kind of like? Yeah, that's kind of what it's like, you know, and um so that's the number one. Number two, it's it's we're able to then build from there on if there's any changes. Um, you know, we we teach the peer support teams and you know, um, anyone who asks, we tell them about patterns. You look for patterns in people, and once patterns change, um you know, keep an eye on that. Why is it changing? Have that conversation with them. So um when we're we do that one-on-one, we're able to first have that connection one-on-one and establish, you know, who this person is, how they react, how do they, you know, and get to know about their families, what's going on in their lives. Um and eventually, you know, we we know when they're having babies or getting married or just bought a house. Um, so all those things I think are really important to maintain um not only a healthy culture within a fire department, but maintain our, I guess, our rapport with them as well. Um, because we do come in, we're highly, highly passionate people about first responders. Um, and that's who I look for. Um, from the very beginning, I make my therapists do free things all the time because that's how I started doing it. All the ones that were volunteer, you know, clinician response team or or for Coral Springs Parkland or going to conferences, all these things, we all did it on our own dime. We all did it um for free because we were passionate about it. And that's what I look for in therapists as well. So the way that the um, so we do education, the critical incidents, the behavioral health manager, um, the the counselors, um, and the screenings. Um, we also do a lot of peer support um training or building a brand new team if they haven't had one, um peer support, um just peer support support um for the peer support team. Um so we've had peer supporters who, hey, I just met with somebody, this is what they told me. Is that okay? Did I do okay? Should I follow up? What else do I, you know, say? Um, we do a lot of that. The way that firefighters get a hold of us is um we have a 1866 U command, the letter U with one M. And um, you know, when we first got to Boynton, little funny side story, um, the guys were like, I'm not calling a company, they don't even know how to call how to spell commands, you know, they're spelling in with one M. So when I we put posters up, we said, We know it's spelled with two M's. Like it's just, you know, that's how the number went. So um, so it's a 1866 number. Um, when it first rings, it rings to me, um, or it would ring to me. Now I have uh three or four people answering the call. So it's like on a round robin. So number one, they're answering, they're speaking directly to command counseling um employees, um, or even myself. Um, and we're setting them up right away with you know whatever services are are needed. Um, we ask them where they live, do they want face-to-face, are they okay with telemedicine? Because since COVID, a lot of clinicians are still doing telemedicine. A lot of them gave up their offices. Um, we ask them what the issue is, um, because I'm not gonna give you a marriage and family therapist if your issue is anxiety, um, you know, or grief. So we just onboarded a an amazing grief therapist up here in Clay County Um who actually is studying um or studied psychology and and therapy because of um her father was murdered. Um so when you have, you know, uh it's she says it's a different kind of grief. So I love that we bring on all of these specialties that we're able to cater to the first responders and bring them highly specialized people for whatever issue that it is that they have. Um and also are culturally competent, get along with them. I think all of us therapists that are passionate about first responders could have been a first responder. Um, what I look for in a behavioral health manager is somebody you know you you're gonna want to go have a beer with. Um, and that's what we want them to feel like they're they're comfortable enough to be able to just sit down and relax and just talk to us. So um when you know, Chief Motes was saying that when you walk in, obviously the first fire station probably it wasn't until the 20 plus fire, you know, stations that I've walked into that I felt comfortable. But now I walk into a fire station, go straight for the coffee and make myself a coffee. Um, you know, it that level of comfort is read by the firefighter very, very quickly. Um, and that's important. That's very important.

Voiceover 36:18

And the magic happens.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Yes.

Voiceover 36:21

Um Chief, let's look at it this from uh this perspective. Uh I wanted to ask you about the feedback you're getting on your end from this program and and what kind of buy-in you're hearing. It's um what the acceptance is with the members of the department.

SPEAKER_05 36:38

So she mentioned first responders. They are our first responders for our time in need uh for that special situation that's there. So um I throw that out there to any of the fire chiefs that are out there. They they provide a service for you no different than your dispatcher or different than any of the other ones. Um but I think I would I I risk would would risk getting a vote of no confidence if we took this away from them. Um and and I don't say that lightly, I say that seriously, and because um they the approach, and I I don't think that the our our general employees, other than that they're told that this is different than what other departments are doing, I think it's starting to get out there now because uh we are educating them a little bit, because this is not just a part of just us, the fire service in general, we all know people from definitely in this entire region up here. Um, a lot of our employees are you know just best friends with maybe somebody that's in another department. So things uh will affect them ancillarily of that happen in other departments. And you know, quite frankly, there's been a lot of that, you know. What well what do y'all do there type of thing? So it it's been nothing short of when it comes to their overall benefits, um, something that just could not be taken away from them. That they uh that and if we did, we would have to we'd be challenged to find something exactly like it. Uh, but we we would we would do the same thing. I want to go back real quick because I think it's important for the fire chiefs to kind of understand a couple things out there that when it comes to insurance and EAP and and how that works, you know, sometimes us as firemen, we figure out ways to manipulate the system. I know it's a shocking thing for the any of the firemen out there to hear that, but we do. Um, we used to mandate people to go to EAP as a way of uh most of those services only allow you so many visits. After those visits, and that goes over to insurance and co-pays and things of that nature. One of the unique things about this is that it's kind of like if you want to think of it as your phone plan, almost a bucket a minute type of deal that's monitored by command counseling. Um, I don't monitor that at all. Uh Marie takes care of that, or her group takes care of that. And that takes care of that therapy side. This is not the side that's within the department. That's you know, that's there 24-7 all the time. This is the side when they need to go and they decide that they they do go get professional help. Um, there's not there's not a number put on that. It is it is you go until you get taken care of and get fixed. And and then that's another degree of that anonymity as a fire chief or even as a personnel director of the department, um, that you've got people that know what they're doing to help monitor what that needs to happen. So let's just say somebody's taking advantage of it, right? And you know, 30 appointments later, uh something's going. Well, they they manage that, and they're not going to leave somebody high and dry, but it's not something the employee has to worry about either, of oh, I've only got this amount of times to try to get this taken care of, um, and then it's done and over with. So I think that was that's important. Um, and then like you said, when when it comes to uh what it's been in our system, it's so embedded now uh that's been a combination of those visits, of we've got posters on the wall, we carry stuff in our pocket uh to be able to give to them. They could call our any of them could call our dispatch center because if they're in a bad, bad way, they may not have it with them. They could call the dispatch center, they could call their station, say, hey, give me that number that's up on the wall. And then quite frankly, they make themselves so available, yes, we may uh reach out to them directly uh to get them involved or give the number to the employee. And uh that that sort of personal attention, I guess you would say, I go back to you're reaching out to a fellow employee that it just happens to be what they do. So I think that's been very helpful.

Voiceover 40:37

Um all great points and features. And um, Chief, I just wanted to talk a little bit about training because um I would think that your uh line officers who are uh supervising your members and perhaps um riding up to other positions uh a little higher up above their normal rank need to know how to access the services and kind of be a little more savvy about how to uh take care of their members if they need help. So talk a little bit about the training piece and and the awareness piece for officers.

SPEAKER_05 41:08

So ours is multifaceted. I would say that we have a true um somewhat of a traditional system in that we use an online kind of an overall training system type of thing. But you know, quite frankly, you you don't you don't really get the one-on-one personal attention asking questions and things of that nature. So so we cover that base by by doing by giving an online type of thing. I think we use vector, which used to be target solutions. Um we allow them to go to conferences, quite frankly. A lot of times when they put in for these things, the department pays for that. We do utilize command counseling to say, hey, tell us a little bit about this and what they're gonna go to. And um, and again, because that's part of what they do for us, right? That's my resource. And then they kind of give us a thumbs up or thumbs down. 99.9% of the time, it's yes, hey, send them to them, have them bring it back. And then also they're in they are in charge of our mental health program in our department. So inside of the department, they are able to give that um um that training to those individuals uh to help them understand how to integrate, what to watch out for, uh, those those sort of things.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

Our greatest asset is a thinking, knowledgeable, well-trained, physically fit, and healthy firefighter. It is the continual drive to be better, to improve, and to never be satisfied with the status quo. Success begins long before the alarm comes in or the tones go off. Success is nothing new in the FDOI. We did not definitely wake up one day and become good at what we do. We need enthusiastic leadership and training that has a clear understanding of what's at stake. That is teamwork, that is dedication, that is well-trained firefighters, ready to go to work on game day. The time to train is now, before the incident or game day. We've all seen the leader who's tactfully proficient, but lacks the people's skills for true inspirational leadership. Cornerstones of leadership, on and off the fire ground, discusses the top skills necessary for success, both on and off the fire ground.

Voiceover 43:24

Bree, let's talk a little bit about people that are entering the profession. We're talking about recruits, the academy. Um are you part of that process when uh when a new firefighter is getting trained to do the job?

SPEAKER_03 43:35

Um we do meet with every single one. Like you know, Chief Moak said that the Clay County is growing. So they have brought on. I think since I've been here, they've had four recruit classes. Um we meet with every single one of the recruits. Um when they do a live fire training, we obviously go because that is really cool. Um we um visit the the school when I first onboarded um the behavioral health manager here in Clay County, Sarah, she was throwing ladders with the recruits, you know, during training. So yes, we anyone knew or or the recruits were touching base with them from before they're even on any of the trucks.

Voiceover 44:25

Fantastic. Chief, um speaking of recruits, uh let's look a little bit at recruitment and retention. Are you seeing any effect on perhaps attracting people to your department because you have this program? It's not typically something we put in brochures per se, but I think more and more it's becoming something that's important to uh the younger generation who are considering joining our profession. So what are you seeing in terms of recruitment and retention with this program?

SPEAKER_05 44:54

So I I'll say that I probably go more into depth than the average fire chief goes when I when I do a um an interview with a new firefighter. I utilize it as a bit of a selling point on with the department because I do go back and I talk about the things that I talk about the big ticket I big ticket the big items that the fire services had to deal with going back to the to the health and the the the heart and lung bill the cancer initiatives and now mental health and I hit every one of those things and I talk about what our department has done to address those. Well I've I've got something I can say that we have done to address the mental health side of this and in doing so I believe it somewhat sets the stage for them to be a little more open to it and that to understand as a department this is our position on it. So I get that one-on-one with that individual to say that that we've thought so much of that of this area of our department and look you're gonna go through the next 25 to 30 years of your life subjecting yourself to this and and and I just try to be real with them you know and not every day is you know is is is candy and what have you yeah it's a it is the it is to me the funnest job in the world uh but you know you get paid to do things that um that nobody should have to be uh you know be subjected to um I'm not saying anything that any firefighter doesn't know but everybody handles it different ways and one of the things that I had to learn as a as a as a fire chief is that there are actual real ways that they can make it it's not just hey how do you feel about this well how do you feel about that it's not it's not that it is that the blank the brain physiologically and I'm not going to talk outside of my realm here I but I just know enough to know that I was convinced um but there are real things that happen to the body over time and how it deals with these and how people deal with the different things. And just in emergency medicine which is we understand a lot of that is is that people respond differently to different treatments, right? So this is once I was able to kind of get my mind around that is that I I I probably still call her a shrink every now and then just to mess with her but at that but really they they have real ways real ways to treat firefighters and to give them tools that over their long term of their um of doing this service to hopefully keep them healthier all the way through give them coping mechanisms to help deal with some of these things because they're not going to stop them from being subjected to it that's going to happen. But to help them be better prepared uh when they are uh the other side of this is too is that um she mentioned earlier talking about the families um one way that we but one place we hope to go I've kind of seen this in some other systems that as we do our recruits that we actually bring the spouse maybe even the kids in and we have a family night during that and that night is not just for the firefighter but it's also to start you know have that education with that family coming in and say okay this is what you have to look forward to not only do we have Marie and her group come in but maybe we have some you know my wife my one of my kids and some of the other departments type of thing to go in and talk to those families one-on-one and just kind of create that that uh that open relationship I think it's we look back and we go gosh it was never that way when we were there right well you know what we got to kind of get over that and realize the fact that life is way different than it was back then right uh social media the amount of information that's out there it's just different fires are different today uh mental health is different today than it was then so you know if I sound like I'm trying to sell it um I'm a firm believer in it now um I will tell you she's had to I I use utilize her and others in her profession to um to educate me on how to get there and I know other colleagues of mine and I think she'll vouch for this at some point they have something that clicks and they go all right so maybe I don't understand this but help me understand it. Give me a resource point to me something where I can get a uh a better understanding of what's going on here because it it's my job it's the the fire chief's job to to manage the that to that to manage your group in all forms right keep sure make sure that you're operational ready and this is a part of that if you're not doing that then you're not doing your entire job.

Voiceover 49:41

So chief I got to imagine that this really creates job satisfaction and that the members feel cared for because of this program that you've you've put into place because of the um the quality and the uh availability of this kind of care that their well-being is something that you value um that you prioritize and um so I've got to imagine that really has a profound effect on on how your firefighters and EMS personnel are feeling job satisfaction. So I I want to give you both a lot of credit and kudos for creating this program. I've interviewed a lot of people and I have never heard of anything quite as innovative as this so I wanted to um thank you both for doing this amazing work in service for the brothers and sisters of the fire service.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

I wanted to add uh one thing that you asked um Chief Motz about feedback and um so um you mentioned that I I had the master's in clinical psychology I actually completed a full doctorate in clinical psychology and um halfway through dissertation was you know got divorced and I had a four and a five year old so I you know started working and then went into inpatient world and you know was um very happy there and didn't think I would ever go back to psychology or finish my dissertation because I didn't feel a need to um but I am doing that now um became an empty nester and needed because I wasn't busy enough so I needed to add more stuff to my plate. And I'm currently finishing my dissertation and I'm actually doing my dissertation on the efficacy of command counseling. So I am going to be surveying um comparing the IFF NBC 2018 survey on perceptions and attitudes of mental health with first responders or firefighters. So I'm gonna give that same survey to see if there's any changes to the firefighters but I'm also going to ask about command counseling and see you know what is working what maybe isn't working so that you know we have it in a different format. It's not just getting the feedback and seeing the changes but now you know in a very anonymous survey getting that you know pure raw information you know what are we doing right what are we doing wrong um type of thing. So that's in the works right now as well.

Voiceover 52:27

So as we wrap up if you would care to uh Chief and Marie uh please share where people can find you and get in contact my email is Marie at commandcounseling.com our website is commandcounseling.com and um you will find there our phone numbers the uh company number is 1866U the letter U command with one M.

SPEAKER_03 52:54

And like I said we are on call available 247 365 just like our first responders.

SPEAKER_05 53:03

Great. Yep again my name's Dave Motes um you can obviously go to the county website I'm on there uh but my email address is david.moats that's M-O-T-E-S the at symbol and then clay countygov all one word dot com. My number here at the department is 1888 Clay EOC and that should get uh straight to me with no problem. Feel free to reach out.

Voiceover 53:29

Fantastic appreciate that I just wanted to again thank you both for being here and sharing this information. I'm sure that uh if it's going to touch someone or some uh chief or an officer out there who's considering putting a program together this will give them some inspiration and ideas on how that can be achieved. So thank you both for everything you've done up to this point and uh thanks for being here on Responder Resilience.

SPEAKER_03 53:55

Thank you David thank you so much.

Voiceover 53:57

Remember to like and subscribe our YouTube channel is Responder Resilience our Facebook pages are Responder Wellness Inc and Responder TV we're on bbsradio.com Apple Podcasts Spotify and all the podcast platforms and go to our website respondertv.com for past episodes and guest information until next time stay safe be kind to yourself take care of the city