An ongoing issue in emergency management is the vulnerabilities of those on the front lines. The Greater St. Louis Critical Incident Stress Management Team has provided support for first responders with a program that stared in 1991, according to an article in www.stlcism.org. “It’s always a stressful profession in the first response community,” Gary Christman, deputy director of St. Louis City Disaster response, and board president of CISM, the Critical Incident Stress Management Team told www.stlcism.org. “Helping them understand we can get through this. It’s not that we have to deal with it on our own.”
Composed of volunteers from the fields of mental health, firefighters, police officers, emergency medical and clergy, the initiative seeks to give those at risk information about dealing with stress.“We provide the education so we give people that knowledge of what to watch for, both in ourselves and in our partners, in our teams, and how to deal with that stress on a day-to-day basis,” said Christman.
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For more information about CISM services, visit www.stlcism.org.
For a similar issues in Australia, visit: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-coghlan-memories-of-port-arthur-burn-deep-for-so-many–and-it-wrought-much-change/news-story/9b6a769338831cedf2c29edc3aa5800c
