HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News Record, 2016-10-26, Page 7Wednesday, October 26, 2016 • News Record 7
Justine Alkema/Clinton News Record
Some members of the Central Huron fire department at this year's Harvest Fest.
Critical Incident Stress Management Program changing the culture of local fire departments
Justine Alkema
Clinton News Record
The Critical Incident Stress Man-
agement Program is changing the
way that five local fire departments
handle traumatic experiences at
their job.
A story came out in the Clinton
News Record in May about the pro-
gram after it had just received
funding from council.
Now, the program is being
implemented.
"It's a major culture change for us,
said Kyle Kruse, a Bayfield firefighter
who was instrumental in introducing
the program to the area.
This program is an intervention
protocol that includes pre -instance
education, crisis intervention, fam-
ily support, referrals to other
resources, defusings and assisting
with debriefings, all with the goal of
reducing PTSD in first responders.
One big part of this program is
defusings. A defusing is basically a
group discussion in the fire hall
after a particularly difficult call. It's
getting things off one's chest
sooner rather than later, which has
been shown to reduce the chances
of developing PTSD.
"It's a conversation about what
they saw and what they did," said
Kruse.
Kruse said it's a culture change
because it was traditionally
accepted by those in the industry
that difficult experiences were a
part of the job, and they should
"suck it up" and not talk about it.
"That isn't acceptable anymore,"
said Kruse. Kruse said that while
working as a firefighter in London,
their department had several
responders diagnosed with PTSD;
one responder even took their own
life a result of PTSD. After that, they
implemented a similar program in
London that has been running for
over 15 years.
So far in 2016, there have been 18
first responders and 5 military
members that have taken their own
lives. These trends have brought a
lot of attention to the problem, and
departments all over Ontario and
beyond are moving towards pro-
viding programs such as this for
first responders.
On the weekend of September
24-25, several people from each of
the departments in Howick, Cen-
tral Huron, Bluewater, Huron East
and South Huron attended a train-
ing weekend in Bayfield to learn
how to facilitate defusings.
The program has been in place
for only a few weeks, and they have
already had to have a couple
defusings.
Although the program has been
very well accepted by the respond-
ers, Kruse said it's an adjustment.
"It's sometimes tough for the
guys to know how to talk about it."
Kruse said that before imple-
menting the program, he gave a
presentation at each fire hall to tell
them about the changes that would
be happening.
"I had arguments set up for the
sceptics," said Kruse, in case he got
any push back about the idea. "But
COMMUNITY
OPEN HOUSI
Vanastra Christian
Reformed Church
Oct 30th, 2016 from 2-4 p.m.
Short program at 3:00 p.m.
An opportunity for you to
welcome the family
recently arrived from Syria
Sponsored by
the Tuckersmith
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The Central Huron Fire Department.
I didn't have to use them at all.
Instead, they said, 'It's about time."
Kruse said that traumatic inci-
dents happen quite often, and it
isn't always the "big stories". He
said it might be that a guy calls
Contributed photo
through a floor or a ceiling falls,
and it scares the men knowing how
much worse it could have been.
Kyle couldn't say how often they
use defusings, "but I can tell you
that it gets used a lot'; he said.
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