{"id":173906,"date":"2025-10-01T23:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173906\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T23:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:26:10","slug":"interim-commission-discusses-how-to-address-first-responder-ptsd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/173906\/","title":{"rendered":"Interim commission discusses how to address first-responder PTSD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">MONTGOMERY, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsfa.com\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"http:\/\/www.wsfa.com\">WSFA<\/a>) &#8211; The interim study commission on PTSD in first responders met in Montgomery Tuesday morning to discuss how they want the state to address the mental health of Alabama\u2019s first responders. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Education and prevention are the two things that were at the core of the ongoing discussion. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of services out there. How do we corral all of that? How do we manage it? How do we see what\u2019s working and not working?\u201d asked Rep. Allen Treadaway (R-Morris), the chair of the commission. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rep. Treadaway said there are resources around the state for first responders struggling with PTSD. However, there is not a \u2018one-stop-shop\u2019 to find them. He said the Alabama Department of Mental Health would be his pick for helping to facilitate that service. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The commission said they are focused on firefighters, police officers and they also heard concerns about dispatchers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201c[Dispatchers] are sometimes forgotten, and there is a big thing when you\u2019re talking to someone on the phone on their worst day, and then you move on to the next call. There is something there,\u201d said David Harer, president of the Professional Firefighters of Alabama. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Stigma is another hurdle to overcome; the group said they sent out a survey to get an idea of what barriers are preventing first responders from seeking help. They said they are worried about underreporting due to fear of being taken off of the job. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s not if trauma\u2019s going to happen to all of us in this room,\u201d said Jason Smith, director of Veterans Program Development at Florida Springs Wellness and Recovery Center. \u201cTrauma is going to happen. It\u2019s how we are going to handle it.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rep. Treadaway also floated a potential bill that would help first responders suffering from debilitating PTSD to transition to other lines of work if needed. He said the bill would need $1 million in SEED funding. He said he is still open to feedback from commission members before officially prefiling the bill. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are tasked with working with the existing funding, but that doesn\u2019t stop us from making recommendations [to the state legislature],\u201d said Rep. Treadaway. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Anyone who is in need of crisis support can call the national hotline of 988. Veterans can push \u20181\u2032 for direct access to specific assistance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Not reading this story on the WSFA News App? Get news alerts FASTER and FREE in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wsfa-12-news\/id449733109\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple App Store<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.raycom.wsfa&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play Store<\/a>! <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WSFA. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) &#8211; The interim study commission on PTSD in first responders met in Montgomery Tuesday morning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1604,77863,77862,102,77860,1906,6623,77861,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-173906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-alabama","9":"tag-allen-treadaway","10":"tag-first-responders","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-interim-study-commission-on-ptsd","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-montgomery","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}