First Responders Take Care of Us; Who Takes Care of Them?
Pre-crisis care is often overlooked in an industry that is, by necessity, reactive.
We understand this intuitively in other contexts. For example, fire prevention measures reduce the need to respond to fires in the first place.
So how do we bring that same proactive thinking into first responder wellbeing? It is not achieved through any single intervention. It is created by intentionally building the conditions that support people before crisis takes hold.
We Create Community Together
Community building creates a supportive environment like none other. The support that results from community building provides support 24/7 across the organization. The LIFELINES Community building program teaches participants how to create a pre-crisis support group in their organization.
Are The Members of Your Organization a Team?
Chances are, you already are a team. The next step is becoming a community.
Relationship Building is Key
The people who take care of us during our darkest hours should have the support of a community before the pressures become intolerable. This is typically the point at which post-crisis support is offered. But by then it is often too late. You cannot build the kind of relationship needed to support a fellow first responder in the middle of a crisis. Those relationships have to be in place beforehand.
After experiencing the LIFELINES™ program, one of the participants concluded her feedback this way;
“I do believe this is the missing start of peer support, crisis resilience and crisis recovery.”
Take a Closer Look at LIFELINES
The Lifelines program is different from most first responder training programs. So different, in fact, that it is impossible to capture the spirit of the program on several dozen web pages (and who wants to read several dozen web pages?!) The best way to come to understand the program is to try it out but before you do that, do two things. 1) visit the Feedback page to see what participants have said and 2) book a free 20-minute Zoom meeting with Lori for a more detailed overview of the program.
Photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash