I am sure that the campaign’s storytelling project provides first responders the opportunity to tell their stories of the personal struggles they have experienced on, or because of, the job.
The stories also problems firsthand understand what their colleagues are experiencing.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday on the campaign’s website and Facebook page. Other responders will read them and understand that they are not alone in their own struggles because These stories are published anonymously. In 2014, one of her coworkers committed suicide. Normally, the Code Green Campaign was founded later that year by Farina and similar EMS professionals concerned about the high rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and suicide among their peers. Ann Marie Farina is a paramedic in Spokane, WA, and president of The Code Green Campaign. Actually the name Code Green was created by combining the color of the greenish awareness ribbon used by mental health advocates with the code alerts used to designate an emergency patient. Rate of suicide among first responders could’ve been as high as 23″ times that of the general population.
Substance abuse is also common.
No similar ‘largescale’ studies are conducted on EMS and firefighting teams engaged in everyday operations, while studies was conducted on the mental health of police officers and on first responders following ‘largescale’ disasters similar to Hurricane Katrina and the Oklahoma City bombing.
The campaign estimates that 15 -25percent of first responders been diagnosed with PTSD. Normally, our original plan was to do the storytelling project on social media and use that to Actually the course is offered ‘inperson’ or online. Besides, the campaign’s volunteers, first responders themselves, aim to teach other public safety employees how to care for their own mental health and how to recognize mental health problems in their peers. Campaign also lobbies for systemic change in how mental health problems are addressed by public safety agencies. The things we just recently advocated for is adding mental health, mental wellness and resiliency education to the initial EMS training requirements and the recertification requirements. That’s one of those changes that takes time. We will really like to see more education, said Farina. Needless to say, the Western Berks Ambulance Association, Berks County, PA, has utilized resources from the Code Green Campaign. First responders and the public benefit, when public safety agencies provide their employees with training and resources to maintain their mental wellness and resiliency. Well, Therefore in case you can’t handle it, just get out,’ but that doesn’t actually solve the significant poser, she said. Then, people are worried that they will lose respect or that their job might be threatened if they ask for mental health resources. Among the things we run into is the attitude.
Farina said, Part of the culture of EMS is that we are the helpers, we don’t seek help.
Amidst the greatest obstacles to providing mental health services to first responders is the stigma against asking for help.
Farina says, It is worth spending the money on the education to keep your people on the job. Thewebsite of The Code Green Campaign offers a database of national and local cr resources like cr hotlines, treatment centers and retreats. For public safety employees experiencing cr, the campaign suggests calling Safe Call a ’24hour’ cr referral hotline for emergency services personnel.