In a small-town hall Saturday morning, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA-10) heard concerns surrounding available resources to address mental health injuries from Loudoun firefighters and shared legislation that he is working on to provide more support for first responders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attendees told Subramanyam that a common challenge they face when looking for mental health treatment is finding practitioners who are experienced working with\u00a0firefighters and EMTs.\u00a0Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief Travis Preau said because of a lack in supply for those types of clinicians, first responders are often treated by counselors outside of the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u00a0[go see] a regular counselor and\u00a0they’re like,\u00a0\u2018wow, I am not prepared to deal with some of the things that you’re unpacking here today,\u2019\u201d Preau said.\u00a0\u201cBecause I think this first\u00a0respondercommunity needs kind of a niche set of clinicians that understands what we do, but there tends to be a really big deficit in the number of providers that are\u00a0either\u00a0specially,\u00a0clinically or exposed to what first responders are.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u00a0concern was reiterated by others in the room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a void right there, and\u00a0we aren’t pumping out enough clinicians with this knowledge to serve the number of first responders in the communities who are taking on the toll of a career in this field,\u201d Behavioral Health Coordinator Lynn Gray said. \u201cBecause these guys don’t bounce jobs. They stay. This is their chosen profession. This is their commitment, this is their passion, and they stay. So,\u00a0we\u00a0have todo something to match\u00a0and\u00a0meet that and take care of them so that when they leave here, they can go enjoy their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
That experience is not just needed on the counselor\u2019s side to provide adequate treatment, but it also builds trust with the first responder, which is vital to identifying the illness in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFirefighters, EMTs,\u00a0first responders are not going to divulge\u00a0to\u00a0somebody they don’t trust. And I can read you and read the room\u00a0real\u00a0quick, and if I don’t trust you, I\u00a0ain\u2019t\u00a0saying nothing. Right?So,\u00a0where’s the benefit to the person that needs the service?\u201d one firefighter said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LCFR\u00a0Behavioral Health Coordinator Kristina\u00a0Moore said while peer to peer\u00a0support is important and long-term inpatient facilities are also critical, there is often no \u201cmiddle level\u201d support for first responders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do try our best to network with the community and get community providers that are culturally competent\u00a0in\u00a0working with first responders,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Members of the general community can access intensive outpatient programs that look like three hours of treatment three days a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for first responders, our levels go from here,\u00a0to a therapist one hour once a week,\u00a0to inpatient for 30 to 45 days,\u201d Moore said.\u00a0\u201cWhich if somebody needs that level, absolutely, but we don’t have any other levels in between.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are often very few training opportunities for clinicians treating first responders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to attend\u00a0a national\u00a0conference in June, and one of the things we recognize is there are no classes for clinicians serving first responders. That’s a travesty. That is ridiculous and on a national scale,\u201d Gray said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How can the federal government incentivize schools and clinicians to train and educate themselves in this area, she asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another\u00a0firefighter said it\u2019s easy to fill out paperwork and find treatment for physical injuries sustained on the job, but that it\u2019s harder for mental injures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of that falls back primarily on us as individuals,\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s not lifetime mental health coverage. We’re responsible for our co pays, our medications. \u2026 We’re sometimes doing one or two [traumatic calls] a day, and that just overall breaks you down and wears you down. And then, secondary to that, I\u2019m using my vacation time to go to speak to a therapist for 45 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subramanyam said he was glad for the feedback and to hear about the challenges facing the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNow\u00a0we have some work we need to do the\u00a0social\u00a0work level, and we have\u00a0create\u00a0an ecosystem of people that you can turn to, that you can trust, that understand what you’re going through. I think that is the key to helping resolve a lot of this,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Subramanyam introduced two pieces of legislation last week that he is hoping will provide some additional support to the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Peer Support for Our First Responders Act\u00a0is focused on\u00a0enhancing\u00a0and streamlining\u00a0peer-to-peer work for law enforcement officers and first responders\u2019 behavioral and mental health.\u00a0The bill\u00a0would bring together experts, law enforcement officers, firefighters, first responders, and stakeholders by establishing an interagency working group which would review best practices and issue updated recommendations to Congress on ways to improve behavioral and mental health outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence we’ve seen is that peer to peer mental health services work\u00a0really well. People want to talk to someone who’s had their experience, understands where they’re coming from, and that has worked. So,\u00a0let’s invest in stuff that works,\u201d Subramanyam said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Public Safety UAS Readiness Act, also introduce by Subramanyam last week would establish\u00a0a $10 million per year grant program to support the creation and development of\u00a0dronepilot training for fire departments, emergency medical service providers, and law enforcement agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Subramanyam said other efforts he is pursuing include grants to make access turnout gear that is free from forever chemicals easier to achieve,\u00a0establishing a\u00a0cancer registry to better track health impacts from the industry and a national suicide database for first responders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His efforts were praised by LCFR Chief James Williams, who especially noted the absence of a comprehensive suicide database. The importance of behavioral health treatment has been a\u00a0cornerstone of Williams\u2019 work during his decades with Loudoun\u2019s fire and rescue and he said he\u2019s seen many changes over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is amazingly important to me in so many ways. Through our own tragedies, and the tragedies that we’ve seen and were part of,\u00a0legislation to support our first responders, is so important,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a small-town hall Saturday morning, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA-10) heard concerns surrounding available resources to address mental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260,3,199726],"class_list":["post-610165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-news","tag-public_safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}