S6 E40 | 25 Years Of Free, Confidential FDNY Care: Nancy Carbone Hands Off To Chrissy Neafsey

SPEAKER_06 0:00

The attitude at the time was who the hell is she? Who is she to come in and start talking to our members?

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Are we going to lose anybody? I would say Friends of Firefighters had a role in shaping the history of men's mental health.

SPEAKER_06 0:13

What used to be whispered, you know, you go to Friends of Firefighters if you need help, I wouldn't, is now shouted across union meetings.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

One of the products that we want to create is the first responder culturally competent cancer guidebook in partnership with Livstrom that can be distributed nationally.

SPEAKER_06 0:32

You can do all the advertising you want, and you could spend millions on it. Doesn't matter. They're not buying it. This is a tribe. When it comes from within, that's the advertising.

Voiceover 0:45

Welcome to Responder Resilience. I'm David Dashinger. Twenty five years ago, right around 9-11, Nancy Carbone walked into Brooklyn Firehouse and asked a simple question, what can I do for you? And that question turned into a lifeline for thousands of FDNY families. And soon that lifeline will be changing hands, and we've got the founder and the new leader side by side to tell you how it happened and how it keeps going. This is Responder Resilience. This episode is brought to you by Fight Camp, real training on your schedule. Head to jointfightcamp.com/slash RR and use code RESILIIENTES for 10% off. There's a new app built by Firefighters for firefighters, and it's called Crackle. Download the app now for free as a legacy member and get early access to exclusive content, tools, and updates as they drop. Get the free app at crackle.responderTV.com. Remember to like and subscribe, YouTube Respond Resilience, Facebook Responder TV. We're on LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, and our website is respondertv.com. We'll be right back to speak with Nancy and Christy right after this. Ask a first responder who they are, and you're likely to hear I am a police officer. I am a firefighter. I am a weather. I am a 911 communications operator, not I do this work, but I do this job. Ask a clinician why they work with first responders. And they may say, There's no fire falling and helping helpers. Join us in shaping a culture where mental health, wellness, and leadership are priorities, not whispered. Support is a sign of strength, failure, and where no one has to carry the weight alone. Welcome to Responder Resilience. We try to spotlight on the unseen battles of first responder reality. And celebrate the powerful wins that come from the grit of post-traumatic growth. We understand the culture, honor the trust, and bring you conversations from the change makers, passionate about helping first responders come home whole. With your hosts, retired Lieutenant David Dashinger, Dr. Stacey Raymond, and Bonnie Roomley, LCSW EMT. She walked into a firehouse in Brooklyn asking the question, What can I do for you? And that question grew into a base at the Red Hook Firehouse, where thousands of free confidential counseling sessions are delivered every year to active and retired FDNY members and their families. She's an honorary FDNY battalion chief, and this year she's handing off day-to-day leadership to become a founder and advisor and take her expertise national to help other first responder mental health organizations. Chrissy Neepsey is the incoming executive director of Friends of Firefighters. She's stepping in alongside her husband, Kevin Neepsey, a retired FDNY member, who's now the organization's director of firefighter culture and operations. Chrissy first connected with Friends of Firefighters during Hurricane Sandy outreach in the Rockaways and volunteered with the organization for more than a decade before joining the staff. She brings 20 years of corporate leadership experience and she brings it as part of the FDNY family herself. Nancy Chrissy, welcome to Respond to Resilience.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Thank you. Thank you so much, David.

Voiceover 4:11

So let's dive into this. Nancy, I'll ask you, uh give us a little sort of elaboration on that origin story that I was mentioning, because um I'm sure a lot of New Yorkers flooded into firehouses to see how they could help. And you asked that question, but um as I understand it, you got a little bit of an unexpected answer on one of the ways that you could help. What was that? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_06 4:32

You know, it floored me. I I I went into the firehouse, I went to a couple of firehouses that said uh one in particular said we didn't lose anybody, and and I'll come back to that because everybody did. Uh, I found my way to engine 205 ladder 118. For many years, I wouldn't even mention the companies um because there was such a uh stigma about mental health. And and I knew that if I were to cross that boundary, that there might be some backlash from the firefighters themselves. But at this point, everybody wants it to be known that there's mental health help out there. So I will say I went to uh the firehouse and I met John Sorentino, a firefighter in 205, and he gave me a list. I had a yellow legal pen that I still have to this day, and he numbered what was important. He needed bunting for the firehouse, he needed buglers for the funerals, which was amazing because it uh he knew that his members were dead from his house. And then um he said he wanted uh counselors. That's what floored me because I my great uncle was was killed line of duty, and so there's an an interest in FDMY prior to 9-11, but not involvement other than having some friends on the job. Um, but I did know, as my mother would always say, they take care of their own. So that was a surprise. So the the the bunting was easy, you know, relatively easy. The fire department, as I understand it, had three sets of bunting, and they needed quite a bit more. So I had to return to Long Island to see if I could find it from one of the different firehouses there. The bugler I found, uh, oddly enough, at a funeral. Um he was playing behind the tree, and I I sort of uh snuck up on him and I didn't have a piece of paper, so I wrote his number on my arm and I brought my arm with me to the firehouse and gave it to the firefighters, and sure enough, uh they found most but not all of their members on New Year's Day, and uh they did end up calling that bugler. The counselors I didn't touch for a while because the people that I saw coming in and out of the firehouses, some I didn't want to talk to myself, but they meant well. They really, really did. Everybody came in with good intentions, but there were different approaches, and um there's a place for every single one of those approaches. But it the fire department is very difficult and it's tribal. And so a lot of counselors would come in and I'd see them the minute I saw a clipboard, I would say clipboard in the kitchen, it doesn't go over because no one wants to be recorded. And um what I saw, and it probably comes from I uh my background, I'm I'm from a big family. Uh humor is currency. What I saw was when you speak, be sure of what you're saying, and basically just shut up and listen. And so I saw people come in, some were just wonderful and connected right away, very rare. Some came in with an agenda, some came in wanting to write books, and that was not on anyone's mind. These are people that are going to the site. So I know this is a very long, circuitous way of saying I had no idea what I was doing. I went in there with the intention of helping for a couple of days, didn't think we would uh bond on anything, didn't think that there would be a trust and a friendship that built out of that one day that expanded to other firehouses. And by Christmas time, I was asked to set up a counseling center. I am a mom, not a counselor. So it was a ride. So when you put it in a neat little package and say I went in and they said this is what they need, and here we are, it didn't work out that way. It was really uh a lot of trial and error, but always protecting the members and always confidential. So that I think was um that is the the hallmark of Friends of Firefighters, that it is separate from the job and it is confidential.

Voiceover 8:25

Yeah, it ties into so many things we've been talking about recently with um with folks connected, the FDNY Mental Health, the Counseling Services Unit, and even our topics in general about cultural fluency, cultural competency, and that um how clinicians can best connect with uh first responders and gain trust. And it it's definitely um something that it's not uh easy to do or out of the gate. So thanks for touching on that. Attention, all first responders. Join us for the largest gathering of EMS and fire professionals in New England. Get ready for the EMS and Fire Pro Expo happening October 22nd through 24th, 2026, at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Connect with over 2,500 fellow first responders. Learn from 90 plus world-class speakers, and explore 300-plus continuing education opportunities designed just for you. Dive into hands-on workshops that challenge your skills and elevate your career while enjoying fine dining and entertainment. This is your chance to gain insights that could change lives, yours included. Don't miss out. Register now at emspro.org and be part of this transformational experience. See you there. Chrissy, let's talk a little bit about how you got involved. You volunteered for over a decade before you actually worked at Friends of Firefighters. So was there like a moment where you decided you would say yes to running it?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, well, I this has been such an honor to have this opportunity. And I really never saw this in my bingo card, you know, as they say. Um, I was introduced to Friends of Firefighters through my husband, Kevin. He was in Engine 45 in the Bronx at the time, and our family lived in Rockaway. And we were living up in the Bronx, and Hurricane Sandy hit um five weeks before our wedding, and he was down in the Rockaways helping his grandmother and his great uncle and his parents and his brothers and his neighbors and you know, everyone that he knows and loves in the Rockaways. Um, and he started working with uh uh Operation Gut and Pump, which was out of breezy at the time. And he um I think he knew Nancy before that, but I think really his involvement or Friends of Firefighters anchored in that in that experience together. So coming out of that experience, he was like, Look, they are amazing. I saw what they were able to do for the people of the Rockaways. We have to get behind this organization. And to know Nancy is to love Nancy. So you don't say, you don't say no. And anything she's doing, um, just the uh absolute ingenuity that she deploys to be able to run this organization, like using her arm for the for the you know, paper and getting the resources they need. Like it's it's fascinating to see what she's been able to do over 25 years. So I used my corporate relationships to do corporate volunteer days to help with like gala setup, you know, donations, their personal events, things of that nature. Um last year I left my career of 20 years in corporate America in the tech industry. And at that time, I said to Nancy, Hey, can I intern with you? I, Kevin and I were gonna start our own business, and I wanted to understand how did Nancy, as a civilian, set up an organization that was deeply embedded in trust with the first responder community. And even though I'm a wife of a first responder, it, you know, I'm I'm a civilian, so I'll never know what life is like inside the firehouse. And I really wanted to get that mentorship from Nancy. Um, when the opportunity came up where she said she was looking for someone to succeed her and ensure this organization could move forward, I was so honored and really caught off guard in the beginning by that. But then I was like, wow, this is an amazing opportunity. Friends of Firefighters is truly a piece of American history. And Kevin and I take that very seriously to protect this organization, its mission for the next 25, so that we can hand it off to the next executive director to make sure that it's there for generations to come.

Voiceover 12:46

I just love the partnership you guys have had and how that's uh leading, you know, leading everything forward in a couple of different directions. This next question, I it's I think it's for Chrissy, but hand it off to Nancy. If it's not, this is something near and dear to my heart. I'm in the midst of um filming a documentary as an executive producer on a mental health program that basically the barriers have been removed in terms of payment, in terms of confidentiality, in terms of the department um knowing anything about who's getting therapy. And it appears that Friends of Firefighters was built on a very similar foundation, free, completely confidential mental health care. So as you rebuild that as an operational framework for the next 25 years, how do you continue to protect that core promise to active FDNY members and their families and at the same time scale up capacity?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah, free is really hard. So that is one thing that I have learned over the last, you know, 15 months of working at Friends of Firefighters. And I see a lot of the ways that the first responder community continues to fund their own emergency response. And so a lot of the donations that have come in over the last 25 years, and this isn't just Friends of Firefighters, this is actually a lot of the first responder organizations. First responders are probably the biggest donation base of these organizations themselves because they know that every dollar they contribute is going to fund help for the brothers and sisters that need it, the families. That's just how they that's in their that's in their you know DNA of being a first responder, right? Um so one of the things that I've really been thinking through with Nancy is how do we diversify these revenue streams? Donations are always going to be important, but how do we start thinking about grants as a way to kind of increase our capacity? Grants are really useful around the counseling services and the programs that we're doing. Um, however, those are becoming less and less or lower and lower grant amounts. We're very, very grateful to the support of the UFA this year. Um, they worked with Senator Gillibrand to get us a significant grant to carry us from uh October 2026 to October 2027 for fiscal year 27. So thank you again to the UFA for that advocacy. Um, but you know, it's also looking for corporate underwriters, the civilians who are really looking for ways to step up and reduce the mental load of the first responder community. Um, looking for partnership, multi-year partnerships so we can get more predictable in our in our revenue streams and we can make sure that we have our continuity plans in place for a very, very long time.

Voiceover 15:34

And Nancy, I'd love to hear your perspective on maintaining like operational independence from the department. So it's got to be like one of the most important um assets you have for your for your friends of firefighters. So why is it so important and how do you continue to maintain that?

SPEAKER_06 15:52

Oh my goodness. I have to tell you, uh, that was one of my biggest challenges. And the beautiful thing is I had no idea because I had no idea what I was getting into, what I was building initially. Um, but I stayed true to the mission, which was it had to be confidential. In that, we just operated. We just, you know, I I had the uh counselors coming to the little tiny office we had at the time. Um and above all, I just kept my eye on the confidentiality, the trust, making sure that the people that were seeing our firefighters uh if they didn't know, they should just be quiet and learn. And they were willing to do that. We had some really terrific, terrific uh one, the one I think that was just knocking it out of the park with the members, and when she moved, everybody was upset, was Emily Siegel. Um, and she was able to relate to the firefighters on such a level that they would call and openly say in front of others, I'm going to see Emily. So that was my first realization that we could attempt to destigmatize it, but really the only way to do that was to build the trust. Simultaneously, the firefighters that were at 9-11, um, of which there were many at the time, the more senior members, and they were predominantly men, but so the senior men were starting to talk about the difficulties they were having, the struggles they were having, the traumas they could not put aside, the images, the smells, the sounds. Uh, and that really did impact the members in the kitchen that looked up to that senior member. That's when I started to see it break down for real. Because without you know, the you can do all the advertising you want and you can spend millions on it. It doesn't matter. They're not buying it. This is a tribe. When it comes from within, that's that's the advertising. And to be honest, I didn't advertise, I didn't tell anybody what I was doing. I got a few offers from different places to do interviews, but I felt that the allegiance to the members by not mentioning it. So even then, I wasn't trying to make it something that was loud and proud, and you know, it's time to pull the band-aid off and make sure everybody it was very quiet. The fire department itself had a small CSU. They were thrust into a catastrophic situation where they had, I believe, and I might be incorrect, I believe they had 11 counselors on 9-11 going in, and they had to amp up very quickly to at least 100. Um, and they were making visits to the houses. Those are not the counselors I'm commenting on because that's CSUs, you know. These were people that just were volunteering that I'm commenting on. And again, all good intention, mostly except for the book writers. I think with the fire department, their right attitude at the time was who the hell is she? Who is she to come in and start talking to our members? Are we going to lose anybody because she might be a wacko? You know, there were some people that were a little, I would say, um, without balance. Okay. So they would go in and they would try to do things and it was a wild time. Um, the fire department was right uh in making sure that people were vetted, but they didn't know how to vet me. Um I was not married to a firefighter, I was not on the job. Uh they didn't know I wasn't advertising, it was very quiet. So that added a level of of uh interest to the firefighters and maybe fear to the to the counseling services unit. I think on another level, they probably thought as we were gaining recognition that we were going to be competition uh for grants and whatnot, which gives me a lot of credit that I don't deserve because I didn't even know how to go for grants at the time. I didn't know really what I was doing. So I have to be very honest about that. Um, I would say it was 2014 or so uh that the it might be a little bit later, that uh the commissioner Dan Nigro uh uh was able to become commissioner, but he had to step down first from our board of directors. So there I had a connection, and that opened up a lot of the trust between the fire department and friends of firefighters and CSU. So now they even give up our name out as as uh a referral, which became a problem because they referred so many people to us, it it really was a financial burden. That's another thing to discuss. But the fire department at this point, I'm very, very fortunate to have been honored by them. Um still in shock that I was. Um I don't see the I I don't see that. Um I deserve that, but uh it's very I'm very proud of it. My mother sure was. Um but the the fire department itself at this point, I do get invites to everything, and I'm very grateful for that. And I have good relationships with the commissioners uh since since Nigra.

Voiceover 20:38

What a fantastic accomplishment to come in as an outsider and to you know become that trusted and um and that looked up to and and to be able to work alongside um existing uh counseling services unit and to have be able to maintain this for all you know 25 years. So kudos to you for for creating that and doing everything you did to get it to where it is.

SPEAKER_06 21:00

Um thank you, David, but nobody does anything alone. I do have to add that, right? There are always people that are helping. So I want to add that. And I do want to say that my daughter was 15 uh when that when 9-11 happened, and she was by my side, and eventually she became a counselor and she worked with us. So there were so many other people, and now Chrissy, Chrissy's a gift. Chrissy and Kevin are gifts.

Voiceover 21:23

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SPEAKER_01 22:26

I actually will pitch this to Nancy, but I would say the the biggest I think the biggest barrier that's been broken is that they had a generate the this younger generation of firefighters have a generation that preceded them that really created a movement around breaking the stigma, around asking for help when you need it. And I would say Friends of Firefighters had a role in shaping the history of men's mental health. And so I think that that has really been so influential in helping to create space for the next generations to access that care and to just bring visibility to it in, you know, not even nationally, but internationally, because Friends of Firefighters is known globally among fire departments. And so I think that is really that I think is just the the ability for these first responders who who got the help to stand up and say, I went to Friends of Firefighters, they helped me, and they will help you if you need them also. And I'm out here advocating for this care for you when you need it. I I think has been the biggest, the biggest break to those barriers. Um, but I'll I'll hand the specifics over to Nancy because she's seen that happen throughout the generations over the last 25 years.

SPEAKER_06 23:47

What used to be whispered, you know, you can go to Friends of Firefighters if you need help. I win, is now shouted across union meetings. Hey, I went over to Friends of Firefighters on a day, hey Nancy, is this so-and-so counselor going to come today? Totally blew my mind the first time it happened because I had been so busy being quiet about it that that when they started to advertise it, and yeah, a lot of that was generational. Some of it was when it when going to counseling significantly changed a first responder's life or their partners or their family member. Um they wanted to share that because they do take care of each other. And the new generation, they just don't see mental health care as a barrier, they don't see that as a failure. They actually see it as part of a routine, right? So some of them are really into the the physical um you know uh activities like at the gym and all of that. But they don't they don't look at uh mental health going for counseling as as a weakness. The previous generations, I think historically, not just the guys on 9-11, they would look at that as a weakness. I do remember, unfortunately, there were some that went for counseling and uh just the house found out and that you know they got a hard time about it. Um and that stopped as the senior members started to go, and the message was, hey, I got the help. And and the members could see the change in that senior member. And that in and of itself is like, uh, maybe it doesn't suck. Maybe this isn't for fools or losers or whatever. Um, and some people still want it quiet, so we still operate the same way.

Voiceover 25:29

Let's talk about the practical mechanics of this because we know that you know, when first responder once reaches out for help, they've probably gotten to the point, you know, the breaking point, and it's their 911 call. So, Nancy, if a firefighter picks up the phone today, how long before they're actually sitting with a clinician and is there a wait list?

SPEAKER_06 25:48

This is the thing that is the bane of my existence is the wait list. Uh, for many, many years we didn't have one. Um, and I always consider a firefighter's call a May Day. I do not look at it as, you know, oh, I I think I'm having some trouble and maybe I should head it off at the past. It's always she left me, and I have no idea why, you know, and and and her answer to that is I've been telling you for two years that this is difficult or whatever. Um, at this point, because of last year, we were overloaded. And so as a result, we had a financial challenge that was difficult to meet. We started a wait list and it it got to be pretty big before long. And then the wait list was unacceptable to all of us. So we really pulled up everything and uh got all of our supporters involved to meet the need, and we're doing much better now. And Chrissy, are we at a zero wait list now? I know we were touching.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

We're not at a zero wait list because every week we're getting more and more, we're getting calls in to get them like assigned out or you know, intakes for for counselors. So I would say on average, we probably have a list of maybe, you know, three to seven people that are waiting to get assigned to a counselor. Um, we have also just fired up our referral network. So we have alumni counselors that have been at Friends of Firefighters that the community loves deeply, and we're re-engaging with those individuals so that we can just have referrals out to people that we trust in that counseling space so that we're not the bottleneck for care. Um, but yeah, I think that's that's been the hardest thing for me working with Nancy over the last years. How do we, how do I start learning how to balance capacity and um, you know, with the needs and create additional flow for care so that there's access and we're, you know, even if we do our job and we're, you know, doing um hundreds of free counseling sessions uh a month, right? Like we just making sure that we're not bottlenecking anyone who's waiting for care is really our priority.

SPEAKER_06 27:58

And to expand on that, we had the gift of a lifetime in Aaron Clark. Aaron Clark was a uh a military, he was a Marine, he was a firefighter at 54 and 4, and then Rescue One. Um, Aaron became a peer with Friends of Firefighters. He headed up our peer team. He was expanding it when he got cancer, and he unfortunately passed away last September. Uh, we just had his plaque dedication the other day. Um the peer program that we have developed and are expanding is the gift that Aaron left us and the responsibility that he left us. So we have identified firefighters and trained them to be that stop measure measure. Historically, Friends of Firefighters has been within 24 hours, they need to be seen or at least called and and and organized, like uh arrange an appointment. Okay. When last year got to be on wield again, we were having difficulty. The peer program fills that void so that they do get a call. They do, and you'd be you might not be surprised. A lot of things can be handled at a level with peers that a counselor couldn't have helped. That it really does come down to somebody else that was down the hallway, somebody else that had a similar experience, somebody else who understands what it is you went through because they went through it. So there's there's value in that. And um, so I think that the firefighters that call they say, I need help, uh, yes, but what kind of help do you need? Let's identify that. Is it marriage counseling? Is it individual? Is it group? Do you want to talk to a peer? So our focus now is kind of turning it back to the initial um institution of Friends of Firefighters. The philosophy was you come, the peers were going to be the foam, the main focus, right? The people come to Friends of Firefighters, they can talk to a peer. And if they need, then they can go to a counselor. And we got away from that for a little while and it became counselor heavy. And now we're going back to, you know what, the peers are the gateway. They absolutely are the gateway. And now we've got enough experience to not only recognize that, but to empower them to be able to take the program and bring it to another level. And it is called the Aaron Clark Peer Program.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

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Voiceover 31:03

This episode is brought to you by the First Responder Center for Excellence. Because even the best of us face unexpected challenges. They've got the tools, the training, and the resources to keep you strong, safe, and resilient. Equip yourself at FirstresponderCenter.org. And since you've touched on partnerships, talk about some of the other strategic partnerships. I know that you both were very much involved with this recent 9-11 ride for resilience that took place. It's an amazing event. And I know you have other strategic organizations that you are strategically partnering with. So talk about who you're working with and what you're doing and how it all supports the mission.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah. Well, the main, like one of the main lessons that Nancy has really embedded in my uh, you know, just philosophy around Friends of Firefighters is listen to the members and they'll tell you what they need. So that is really what I've taken to heart. Um, over the last year, we have heard an outcry of support around uh cancer, right? Like we've had so many 9-11 deaths from cancer-related illnesses. Um, we've had so many people in the firehouse who were diagnosed with occupational cancer. And this has been a real issue around mental health and just psychological safety within the within the fire department. So the ride for resilience was a grassroots organized peer support bike ride that that first started in 2024. Um, Kia was a founding member of that ride, and that was between members of FTNY and Irish firefighters. And they went to Ireland and did a memorial bike ride and uh a ride in honor of their friends and coworkers that couldn't ride with them. And they spent a few days together and really solidified the brotherhood between this community. They went back in 2025 and did it again. So this year in 2026, um, I know Suzanne uh Stone was on, was on this podcast, I think a few months ago talking about the ride. But they the ride for resilience crew wanted to come stateside because it was the 25th anniversary for 9-11. And I had asked, I had reached out to Live Strong to say, would you be interested in, you know, partnering, underwriting this ride with us, because the effects that cancer is having on the fire department and our other first, like all first responders, truly, um, is so overwhelming in so many different capacities, just in terms of like accessing resources, accessing mental health support, just you know, anticipating the journey of a of someone who's diagnosed with cancer. Um so coming out of the ride for resilience, one of the products that we want to create is the um first responder culturally competent cancer guidebook in partnership with Live Strong that can be distributed nationally to all first responders to help them navigate occupational cancer diagnoses. Um we also heard, you know, around suicide prevention, like our peers really want to get involved in helping prevent suicides within their firehouses, within their departments, et cetera. So we're working with NyLeap, New York law enforcement assistance programs, to roll out the assist suicide uh prevention protocol to our peer support team. Uh, they also have a certification for peer supporters. So we're gonna be working with them to help make sure that all of our peers are trained in how to do individual and group peer support events. Uh, we're working with Smart Recovery, which is an additional methodology for people who are working through sober living resilience and and working through, you know, substance abuse issues. We are, and that was at the request to get groups together from the peers. Um, and then lastly, we're working with soaring spirits and um, well, not lastly, but soaring spirits is actually going to be doing grief literacy training. We have a lot of requests around widow and widower support, uh, grief, grief support groups, and then Eve Buka's Stanfast Alliance team. So Eve Buka is a dear friend of Friends of Firefighters. She is in another amazing 9-11 foundation founder, uh, Stanfast Alliance, and she's partnered with Rising Star Farms in Connecticut um to do equine assisted learning programs and heart math. So, this is another program that our peers tried. They loved it, and we invested in setting up more sessions for them in into the next year. Um, so those are some of the partnerships that we've had. And David, one of the partnerships actually that I'm excited about is the Fairfield County Trauma Response Team. We met them uh the last night's dinner at the Ride for Resilience. They came and me being from Fairfield County originally, born and raised. Like that was a very full circle moment for me, which was awesome to be able to do something for the first responder community back where where I'm from.

Voiceover 36:23

So amazing. Yeah, and uh I know I know there's a lot of synergy between what you're doing in Fairfield County trauma response team, and um we we had the pleasure of having Ibuka on the show, probably our first or second season way back. So um we're well aware of what she's doing out there. Yeah. Beyond the talk therapy and pure support, are there other resources that are available, stuff that may help with finances or anything people might not expect from an organization like yours?

SPEAKER_06 36:54

Uh, one of the initial things that struck me was that um it doesn't always have to be about counseling, it has to be about um trust and the way to build trust. I have learned, I didn't go into it saying, how can I do this so I can get them in the door, um, was to offer things that I thought that were going to be a bridge, right? So initially it was um acupuncture and it was just ear acupuncture, which we so silly, but in the beginning, everything was done at the house because the firefighters were either at the site, so it was a pile, then it was a pit. It was at the site or the firehouse. And so we were at the firehouse doing these ear magnets. They do not work when you put your helmet on, you stab yourself when the helmets come on. So we live, we learn. Uh they some of them tried to jump on the rig with needles sticking out of their heads. Um, but I thought that that was a way of just building a bridge, but it was more I see that in hindsight. At the time, it was what do you guys need? And there wasn't a request for acupuncture. There was somebody that offered her services and it worked out. Then they were saying there were problems with uh finances, especially after 9-11, because there was no attention paid to the bills coming in. And the spouses at home were really struggling because they had the kids all the time, they went to all the functions and they took care of the home. So it became a problem like two or three years out. So we had an offer from uh the sister of firefighters, Karen Donnelly, to help them navigate through their financial challenges, and so Karen's still with us today with doing whatever anybody needs to help straighten out things. Now we have in-house acupuncture. So uh Gina does the uh acupuncture, it's full body, and she's been trained and licensed. And the idea is to offer up things that will help families take something off their plate, right? So we have always offered our services to family members. During Sandy, it was actually extended family members. Uh so what I did when I started Friends of Firefighters, and it might have been the smartest thing I did, and I can't take credit for it. I the credit goes to Lieutenant Kevin Dermity of 82 Engine. He said, make it flexible enough so that when there's another disaster, you have room to move. So while the mission says we're there to for the long-term support of FTMY firefighters active and retired and their families, we left it wide open. So when Sandy did hit and the firefighters needed help, we turned our firehouse into basically a campsite and we deployed people from there. We got I went out and got 14 bunk beds, and firefighters came from all over, predominantly New Orleans, and you know why there's a connection there. A lot of the firefighters had experienced, obviously Katrina, but they experienced a relationship with the FDMY who went down after Katrina to help. So that bond was there. And so that's how we actually expanded on our friendship with Kevin Neevsey, which was Gut and Pump, which was started, I believe, by Phil Pillet and Bobby Eustace, uh, Bronx firefighters, and they were gutting out the house, pumping the water out. Um understand for people that don't know and haven't seen pictures of Sandy, there were upside-down houses in the middle of the street. I'd never seen anything like that. And it was um it was a time that the they didn't really want to talk about counseling. I had all of our staff and volunteers go house to house with a clipboard because now it's different, and say, Do you have kids in school? What are your needs? Do you have food? Do you need clothing? So we set up a warehouse uh in in uh an area in Queens, which was not difficult for them to get to. We staffed it with a counselor and we had one family come in at a time. We didn't do clothing because these are not people that, you know, they don't need secondhand clothes. They needed gift cards to Macy's, they needed, you know, help that way. We had uh toiletries, that was fine, but I didn't want to tell these people that they were now, you know, um, after all their hard work, that they were um needy in a way that they they couldn't accept the help. So we made it as private as possible and we kept it uh for several months until we felt that we needed to retreat. We retreated when the mold came in and um call me a chicken, but I was really worried about the lungs of the firefighters and and the helpers. So yeah, we expanded from that. And again, in uh COVID, we had to reinvent ourselves during COVID. So we immediately went virtually online completely. I know virtual means something different. I'm an old lady, so virtual actually means real, and now it doesn't, but uh we we had already had a platform for counseling that was HIPAA compliant, so uh we just went full time onto that. And we made it through. We made sure that we had packages that went to the firehouses. They needed masks desperately, they needed gloves, and so so again, you have to kind of go with what is needed, and that is the ear to the ground listening to the firefighters.

Voiceover 41:54

This episode is brought to you by Fight Camp. If your job already demands everything from you, your training shouldn't add chaos to your day. It should give you structure. This is for firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, dispatchers, and police officers who still want a way to train with purpose. Fight Camp brings structured boxing and martial arts training into your home. No commute, no waiting, no guessing if your workout actually moved you forward. Every strike is tracked, so progress is visible, not vague. Every session gives you a clear standard to meet and a way to improve the next time you show up. Head to joinfightcamp.com slash RR and use code RESILIIENS for 10% off. Christy, talk a little bit about your vision moving forward. Um, where do you see this organization going? What are some of the things you would love to create?

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah. Um so I started around June with Nancy. And by September, I said, okay, I have our 25, the next 25-year plan. And Nancy's like, oh my gosh. Blew me away. Chill out, you know.

unknown 43:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Um, but if you read it, it's actually all about preserving exactly what it is that we do today. And so that is truly the next 25 years is continuity of care, centering the organization around the peer support team, the Aaron Clark peer support team, making sure that they are bringing feedback from the firefighter community directly to the organization, informing us what our programs need to look like. It is about diversifying revenue to ensure that we have stability, that we can forecast, that we can make sure that we understand how our capacity models need to adjust. It is about bringing our services into the communities that are highly populated by first responder community uh families. Um, the for the firefighter family is dynamic in the fact. That they may have been military, active military or veterans, and now they're on the fire department. They might have entered the fire department through the lawn, through NY NYPD, right? Like they might be married to a law enforcement officer. They're married to nurses and you know, uh EMS and things like that. So it's really about us bringing our services into the center where the families are located so that we can make sure we can help reduce the mental load where they live so that it frees them up to have more capacity to go to work every day and not be worried about if their families are going to be okay. So that's really our vision for the future, which is exactly what Nancy has built the heart of this organization on. And, you know, to honor the legacy of the firefighters who have built the normalcy of this organization, making sure it's accessible. And uh to the work that Nancy's done for like an unimaginable amount of people that have come through the city of New York in the last 25 years, it is truly impossible to measure what Friends of Firefighters has meant to public safety, I would say, um in the greatest city in the world. So that's our vision for the future.

Voiceover 45:20

Wow, incredible vision. Um, Nancy, I'd love to close with you. Someone who's listening today who's struggling, what do you think is the single most important message you want them to know about reaching out to Friends of Firefighters?

SPEAKER_06 45:34

Um I think that people need to know that they're not alone. Right? That's the number one thing. But know that you're not alone. Um picking up the phone, calling for help. We do do an intake where we can grade how urgent is this. And if necessary, we get somebody on it like that that hour. Um the greatest thing you can do for yourself, but since firefighters don't think that way, the greatest thing you can do for your families and your coworkers and the public is to get the help that you need because uh you know they always say that it's a it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem to take your life. And that's the thing that I always like to bang the drum on with Chrissy. It's it's having my grandfather took his life and it impacts generations in a way that you they don't see themselves as going to be missed, but that it's always a void in the family. And so to be able to pick up the phone and get help is the most critical thing to do. I will say that right now, as I step away from the ED role, I am expanding so that other departments can have a friends of firefighters. We did have a pilot program in Biloxi, Mississippi that turned out to be very successful. And now, you know, my I'm I'm talking to different departments that want to have this kind of service. I think it's essential. It's essential that first responders have a place to go that is not affiliated with their job. And with that, I will say CSU does does an excellent job and they are necessary. But there are firefighters who will not ever go to their job, first responders that will not go to their job, and they need to have a place to go that they know is safe. And I'm really proud of the work that Friends of Firefighters does. And I feel that uh passing it forward to Chrissy, the next generation is very lucky to have her.

Voiceover 47:32

Love it. Chrissy, um, where can people find Friends of Firefighters? Anything you want to add in terms of uh someone wants to donate um any events you have coming up, let it rock.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Yeah. Well, please come and visit our website. It's www.friendsoffirefighters.org. And all of our community events and a lot of our uh public-facing engagement is on our Instagram account and Facebook. So our Instagram handle is at friends of firefighters. We're checking the DMs all the time. Reach out if anyone needs anything. Um in terms of events that are coming up, we are very um, we are very honored to be able to mark this milestone as an organization through our 25th anniversary gala, which is going to be October 15th. And we are um also building a fund to help with like the legacy of Friends of Firefighters to make sure that we're building our financial reserves for the next crisis so that we have 10,000 counseling sessions funded at all times, which is the amount of annual funding, uh annual counseling sessions that we project to be delivering by 2030. So that is really the biggest community challenge that I would ask everyone to please help us be able to meet the need of where we anticipate the demand going.

Voiceover 49:01

I can't thank you enough for sharing your time and expertise, but also for the work you're doing. You know, it's a culmination of a lot of things we talk about on this podcast, and you have brought it to uh a reality that um not only is working, but it's saving lives and changing lives. So um much appreciation for everything you've done and continue to do and will do, and uh thanks for being here with us today.

SPEAKER_06 49:23

Thank you. Thank you. Our job is an honor. It really is a privilege. So thank you. Thanks, David.

Voiceover 49:31

Remember to like and subscribe, YouTube responder resilience. We're on Facebook, Responder TV, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and go to our website, respondertv.com for past episodes and guest information. Till the next time, stay safe, be kind to yourself. Take care.