COVID 19 Support Services

 Amid this global pandemic, people are talking about the urgent and critical need for personal protective equipment and sharing concerns about the lack of respirators and the need for testing.  However, the backbone of what keeps our communities safe, our frontline workers, some of their needs are being neglected. Mental health experts collectively agree, there will be a mental health crisis facing health care workers and first responders (FRs) as a result of COVID-19.  This will someday be exacerbated by the inevitable events of mass tragedies and natural disasters to follow.  

Our frontline workers have to prepare and deal with the pandemic, whether it hits us or not, as well as tend to their daily duties of car accidents and other traumas. Every person has a tipping point. To an outside observer, health care workers and FRs look strong and resilient, even in the face of the unknown. However, their calm surface appearance is often the only armor they have left. Having spoken with many frontline workers as a Psychologist many first responders and healthcare workers are barely keeping it together. Many of them are anxious, and they are scared. They have chosen a job, a sense of duty to serve and save us. That comes with an overwhelming burden to appear strong. They aren't sleeping, and they find themselves crying more than usual.

Are we as a community prepared to manage the onslaught of mental health issues in our frontline workers and the citizenry in general? We must think about ways to prevent mental health from deteriorating with innovative ways to target at-risk populations, particularly health care workers and first responders. Mental health cannot be an afterthought in coping with a pandemic or mass tragedy.
First responders and the frontline medical community often prefer to seek guidance and support from others who understand what their day-to-day life is. Seeking outside help can be (falsely) perceived as weak or they are, "cracking under pressure." Perhaps, even fears they may lose their job if they tell someone how they are feeling, or fears of being judged for needing to talk to someone. Research has shown, talking to peers who have shared lived experiences can offer a lifeline of support and encouragement.

This peer-led support program led by other firefights, police officers, paramedics, physicians, and nurses, is led by their peers, for their peers. This peer program offers frontline workers support, guidance, and encouragement. This program includes retired first responders and medical personnel who want to help those who are still serving on the front lines. These peer leaders are not therapists or counselors, and they do not work for EAP. They are simply a safe place for FRs and health care workers to fall, to lean on, or just vent about their day or a safe place to express their fears and their concerns. Peer-led support provides an accessible, on shift, or after shift source for immediate support.

There are licensed mental health professionals on call, psychologists trained in crisis intervention, ASD, and PTSD. These services are entirely confidential and not reported to their employers or EAP. Mental health services will be provided by licensed mental health clinicians, free of charge to the frontline worker, paid for by the First Responder Relief Foundation. As a community, we do not want to back paddle for help. Anxiety and depression have a mirror neuron effect. If one person feels it, so do others. This is what binds us, empathy. This trait is prevalent in frontline workers, which leaves them vulnerable to burnout, compassion fatigue, substance use, mental illnesses and suicide.