Colorado IMT Workshop 2022�Addressing Mental Health In a World of Emergencies

Welcome to the talk

Teresa Ward, MBA, MS/HLS

Dir, BAS Emergency Service Administration

Pikes Peak State College

Heather Cook, MPH, MA, LPC

Healthcare Workforce Resiliency and Retention Program Manager

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Coming up

• What Brought Us Here
• What We Have Heard
• Perceived Barriers
• Situational Awareness of Stress in EM and Responder Disciplines
• Sources of Stress
• Protective Factors
• Phases of Stress
• Some Scenarios
• CEMA Protect Our People Committee

The questions we ask are fateful

Why are we here?

What we have heard��

Perceived Barriers

Situational Awareness of Stress in the EM and Responder disciplines

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• Blind spots
• Awareness
• Hazard vs. Hazard
• The disaster itself
• The resulting stress injury
• Community impact
• There is a universal human element to stress
• There is a science to it

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Sources of Stress

Protective Factors

Phases of Stress

Phase 1: Fight or Flight

• We perceive some kind of threat.
• Our response? Alarm.��Our heart rate increases, our focus sharpens, and our body begins to fill with adrenalin. We feel an impulse to either stay and fight or run away.
• All of this helps us to increase activity for a short time as it’s a natural response designed to help us to survive a threat - very useful during evolution. But now, not so much.
• At work, our fight or flight response can be triggered by multiple things. Boring, monotonous tasks that fill us with dread, looming deadlines, juggling high volumes of work, managing demanding bosses, difficult relationships, or changes outside of our control such as company takeovers and restructures.

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Phase 2: Damage Control

• If the threat we perceive is ongoing, such as an ever-increasing workload, our body tries to help us out by sustaining Stage 1. Great.��Cortisol floods our system, to help us sustain our Stage 1 response without causing any serious damage to our system.

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Phase 3: Recover

• After the initial rush of adrenalin and cortisol, our bodies begin to reset. This stage is marked by a feeling of exhaustion or fatigue. This is the time to:
• Acknowledge the stress impact
• Assess personal well-being
• Do some self-care like relaxation or rest.
• When we listen to our bodies and take steps to embrace this stage, we can reset ourselves for the next stressful event.

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Phase 4: Adaption

• We make it to this stage if we have gone through Stages 1 to 2 and ignore the signals our body has sent us in Stage 3, Recovery.
• During adaption, we tell ourselves that this level of stress is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and we have to adjust to it.
• This stage is marked by all the negative effects of long-term stress: irritability, overwhelm, overthinking, poor sleep patterns, fatigue, loss of self-esteem, second-guessing ourselves, along with increased physical health risks.

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Phase 5: Burnout

• Burnout is the result of long-term, unresolved stress.
• This can be defined as the loss of meaning in our work, coupled with mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion.
• Burnout changes the brain. For some, it may even lead to further physical and mental health complications.

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Some Scenarios

Breakout Session 1: 10 minutes

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A firefighter will never go into a fire without the proper resources and backup

• You complete and integrate all training
• You know what to expect before the event
• Emergency call, gear up, go
• You know what to expect during the event
• Apply your training with a strong expectation of what's in front of you
• Understand fire behavior
• Intervene on the fire to keep it from spreading
• Aim intentionally to protect yourself, others, and structures because that’s your job
• Every person and every structure matters
• It’s critical
• If it gets too hard - if the fire is running over you, you know to call for backup
• You didn't start the fire. You had no choice over it. It happened, and you experienced it. It's just a fact.
• And you know what to expect after the event
• You understand your need for recovery before the next shift comes
• And having taken time to recover, you are ready for the next shift.

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We will never go into a stressful event without the proper resources and backup

• You complete and integrate all training
• You know what to expect before the event
• You know what to expect during the event
• Apply your training with a strong expectation of what's in front of you
• Understand stress behavior
• Intervene on the stress to keep it from spreading
• Aim intentionally to protect yourself, others, and our hearts and minds so we all can keep doing the job
• Every person matters
• It’s critical
• You didn't start the stress. You had no choice over it. It happened, and you experienced it. It's just a fact.
• And you know what to expect after the event
• You understand your need for the recovery stage before the next event comes
• And having taken time to recover, you are ready for the next event
• If it gets too hard - if the stress is running over you, you know to call for backup
• Friend, peer, supervisor, counselor

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CEMA Protect Our People Committee

• We’re listening
• We hear you
• We’re coming
• CEMA Initiative: Protect Our People

CEMA Protect Our People Committee

Cemahelp.com

CEMA Protect Our People Committee

Cemahelp.com

The questions we ask are fateful

Breakout Session 2: 10 minutes

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Discussion