EACH OTHER COPE
The focus is on solutions, she said.
“How can you look at your life story and learn some lessons or find a way you can reprocess it and not have it quite so painful anymore?” she said. “Healing happens in connection. If you feel really, really bad and have a hard time dealing with something you had to do in your service, there is nothing more healing than sitting with someone who was in the same situation and say, ‘Yeah, I was there.’” Joannou urged front-line workers to seek help early, when they first feel anxiety, can’t sleep or are reluctant to answer certain kinds of calls.
Other Canadians need to understand and, in a way, honour PTSD, she said.
“It doesn’t matter how brave, how strong, how well-intentioned, how well-trained, how experienced you are: If you get too close to a fire, you will get burned,” she said.
“PTSD is an injury. Like any injury, there is a way to prevent, there is a way to intervene quickly, there are ways to mitigate the long-term effects and damage.”
THE POWER OF PEERS
Help from peers, and healing with them, can be a big help on the road to recovery, said Dr. Sandra Primiano of Homewood Health Centre.
The Guelph-based mental health and addiction facility, with a history of treating “shell shock” back to the First World War, offers specialized PTSD programs for first responders.
The facility treats about 1,000 first responders from across Canada every year.
“It is therapeutic for them to have that support from their peers,” said Primiano. “They have an automatic trust toward their peer group, a ... comfort level that they may not have when they’re blended with regular populations.”
Dr. David Murray, a psychiatrist with Homewood’s in-patient program, said people are more comfortable in groups of peers suffering from similar issues because there is still a stigma surrounding PTSD.
Mental health issues are treated differently than more “objectively seen” physical health problems, he said.
“People can see a cast on someone’s arm, whereas mental health difficulties are something that can’t be seen with the naked eye,” Murray said. “I think in first responders, because of that, the idea is increased that one should be hardened to those aspects of their job.
WHAT LONDON POLICE ARE DOING
The force has programs to help employees with PTSD, including a peer support group, resiliency training, critical incident reviews after particularly bad events, and a wellness committee, said deputy chief Daryl Longworth.
Still, that’s not enough and the stigma of seeking help must be fought, he said.
“What we’ve come to realize is that every one of our members are at risk of being exposed to trauma.” In September, a 17-member committee from all sections of the service was formed to review all processes and programs and, among other goals, find ways to reduce the stigma.
The force is developing an early intervention system to track types and numbers of calls to see if someone’s been exposed to trauma, he said.
The police force also hopes to hire a counsellor to help teach resiliency and a full-time psychologist, with the idea that every employee has to check in regularly during the year — a way to take the onus off struggling people struggling to ask for help, Longworth said.
“If you don’t have to put up your hand to get help, it becomes routine.” he said.
“Nobody has to put up their hand and run the risk of seeming weak.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Last year, the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Windsor-Essex County branch won a $170,000 grant to develop a psychological health and safety plan for first responders. The association branch created a coalition with all area emergency departments.
It doesn’t matter how brave, how strong, how well-intentioned, how well-trained, how experienced you are: If you get too close to a fire, you will get burned