Defence Story | Mental Health at the Fire Station
Video / January 29, 2020
Transcript
My name is Brandt Becker. My title within the Fire Hall, I'm a Fire Rescue Technician. I've been here for close to ten years. I’m based at the CFB Suffield and I'm the team leader here in Suffield for our R2MR program.
My brother, you know, talked to me about being a firefighter and it was always in the back of my mind growing up has a kid. I really valued the Fire Service and that would be a really good job. So, it took him maybe two and a half minutes to sell me on the fact that this would be the perfect job for me. So, yeah, I took... I did my schooling.
So, the R2MR program kind of encompasses like some sort of assistance in regards to mental health.
When we're dispatched out to an incident, en route, we try to gather as much information as possible. So, you know, everyone's got a radio, everyone's pretty cognative before we get to the scene what we potentially could be dealing with. So, it kind of paints a picture for you before you get there that hey, this is gonna be, you know, not a normal call and gets your mind kind of in that mindset that hey, we're gonna be dealing with something and we need to be sharp and do a good job.
I think we, as Fire Service, have recognized that we've had some deficiencies in the years past and that we need to improve in that area.
I definitely think the morale has gotten better after incidents for sure. I think most if not all of the members in our department are pretty good when they come into the ad hoc incident reviews and not a lot of people really have that stigma anymore. All of us are experiencing the same things and you know, maybe you just need to sit down with a buddy and just, you know, go outside, away from everybody and just sit down and just talk.
The AP program is probably our biggest resource. Peer-to-peer conversations too. You might be able to figure some stuff out and make sense of, you know, some of the nasty things that we have to experience.
These are realities for us. We are gonna be dealing with traumatic incidents and it's completely normal to feel the way you're feeling, whether it's good or bad.
So, I encourage everybody to just, you know, break that stigma, reach out, get the help they need and take care of your mental health.
Text On Screen
For mental health resources for civilian and military members, the following programs and services are available:
Employee Assistance Program
Call 1-800-268-7708 or 1-800-567-5803 (for the hearing impaired)
Canadian Armed Forces Member Assistance Program
Call 1-800-268-7708 or visit https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/military-mental-health.html
The Road to Mental Readiness (R2MR) program
Contact your local Military Family Resource Centre
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