Madame Premier:
I’ve engaged numerous times as a citizen on this issue. As we share Christmas Day 2015, I ask for action in the coming year to bring a fresh focus of approach to dealing with this growing disconnect we have in regards to PTSD in Public Safety Professions.
In 2015, we saw the Province of Manitoba finally acknowledge the issue publicly, with new legislation that supports Compensation for any worker who develops PTSD as a consequence of employment. Such support ensures that for workers, PTSD will be considered presumptive, meaning any worker in Public Safety will no longer in Manitoba need to prove causation as work-related. This mirrors, somewhat, similar legislation in force in Alberta.
Ontario, as well, is now considering similar legislation.
The Prime Minister, in his mandate letter delivered to the Federal Minister of Public Safety, Hon. Ralph Goodale, stated the following:
“As Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, your overarching goal will be to lead our government’s work in ensuring that we are keeping Canadians safe. This goal must be pursued while protecting the rights of Canadians, and with an appreciation that threats to public security arise from many sources, including natural disasters, inadequate regulations, crime, terrorism, weather-related emergencies, and public health emergencies. I will expect you to work with your colleagues to ensure a close link between defence policy, foreign policy, and national security.” – See more at: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/minister-public-safety-and-emergency-preparedness-ma...
Included in specific direction from the Prime Minister is the following:
“Enhance compensation benefits for public safety officers who are permanently disabled or killed in the line of duty, including the creation of a compensation benefit for firefighters, police officers, and paramedics”. – See more at: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/minister-public-safety-and-emergency-preparedness-ma...
Those of us who’ve come before the delivery of this mandate, Police Officers, Fire-Fighters, Paramedics, Emergency Dispatchers, Victims Services Workers, and Correctional Officers have struggled not only with the consequences of this illness for we who have been levelled in life by it, we’ve struggled too with the secondary trauma of wounding due to betrayal and abandonment of our Employers, Peers, and our Governments. Many have been forced into battle for help, which only served to complicate recovery from an already difficult illness to over-come. It is our sincere hope that with Federal Government Support now evident, we will see a cohesive network of service delivery to help deal with a growing, evident crisis in Canada: The death of Public Safety Workers, relative to experiences of PTSD to suicide.
I survived my own attempt in June, 2015, having lost all hope for a quality of life with the loss of another very important relationship in my life. I feel it remains my duty to serve, with only my experience as a Canadian First Responder who’s lived with PTSD now for over 20 years, to ensure the cohesive network of supports necessary are in place. I will not stop hounding Government Officials until I see that this is so, that the situation is set right, and I ask nothing, nothing personally in return: it is my duty as a survivor to offer up my own experience as a potential guide, moving forward, as one who did not receive proper professional care, for which I and my family have paid now a very hefty price.
I realize my previous efforts went unheard due to the instability of my state of mind, and the ranting nature of my engagement, for which I apologize. However, throughout such engagement I was very ill, and very afraid for other First Responders, who I still today consider my peers. I simply do not wish to see what happened to my own families, two now, to happen to anyone else. We are fellow Canadians. We can do much better than we’ve done to date on this issue, if we could simply come together and be heard.
After ten years now of recovery research to help myself, I now have a clearer picture of what’s required for us, having not received quality care myself. I offer the following for consideration.
What’s needed in the face of traumatic experience for a worker in Public Safety?
Early Intervention.
Immediate Intervention when it comes to trauma experiences in Public Safety Workers is an absolute must. Safety legislation that provides presumption of illness for PTSD in Public Safety allows for more immediate care to be granted whenever such care is required.
When we fail to intervene appropriately, we can push what was a more easily resolved experience of Critical Incident Stress on the job, towards more tragic outcomes: Compassion Fatigue; PTSD; Depression; Addictions. The most tragic of all consequences remains, Suicide.
The model of best practice for addressing trauma in this line of work, is one supported by the Traumatology Institute and Dr. Anna Baranowsky from Ontario. She shares her years of trauma experience as a trusted clinician with the Tri-Phasic Trauma Treatment Model that is, in my view, the best construct in terms of intervention and treatment for Public Safety Workers who experience trauma on the job, and those who may later to go on to develop PTSD as a consequence of exposure to the hazard of traumatic experience
The Tri-Phasic Model, I share here, comes directly from Dr. Baranowsky’s web-site with her permission:
Three Phase Trauma Therapy (Tri-Phasic treatment) (Dr. Anna Baranowsky and the Traumatology Institute).
“Judith Herman is a psychiatrist in the Boston area who has written extensive about traumatic response and therapy. She recommended an approach to trauma recovery that includes three stages. The Traumatology Institute most recommends this approach, as seen in the book Trauma Practice: Tools for Stabilization & Recovery (Baranowsky, Gentry & Schultz, 2010, 2nd Ed.)”
“Using a comprehensive three phase approach, the client is:
given a sense of emotional and physiological Stabilization prior to moving into
Remembrance and Mourning, which we will now refer to as Trauma Memory Processing, and then
Reconnection with communities and with meaningful activities and behaviors.
Phase 1: Safety and Stabilization
“The central task of recovery is safety. People who have experienced trauma often feel betrayed both by what has happened to them as well as their own bodies. Their symptoms become the source of triggers that result in re-traumatization. This can leave the individual feeling both emotionally and physically out of control. Getting the right help to regain internal and external control is a primary focus of this phase. This is accomplished through careful diagnosis, education and skills development. The safety section of phase one, is focused on skills development to aid you to practice self-soothing and care skills to increase emotional and behavioral stabilization. In cases where you remain in an unsafe environment, plans to establish personal and practical safety remain the focus prior to delving into trauma memory processing work. The overriding goal is to make a gradual shift from danger that is unpredictable to a situation where you can rely on safety both in your environment and within yourself. Accomplishing this goal depends on the circumstances as well as your internal ability to cope with exposure to trauma memories and may take days, weeks, or months to achieve. In some cases, individuals may remain in the emotional safety and stabilization phase indefinitely while they work on establishing physical safety. Although we do encourage clients to work through their trauma memories this must be done in a respectful manner with the mutual consent of both client and therapist.”
Phase 2: Trauma Memory Processing
“In the second phase of recovery you will begin to work more deeply with exercises to work-through trauma history bringing unbearable memories to greater resolution. Because of the nature of traumatic memories, this process is rarely linear. Bits and pieces of the traumatic events emerge and can be processed. The objective is to create a space in which you can safely work through traumatic events and begin to make sense of the devastating experiences that have shaped your life. A good therapeutic relationship should provide you with a compassionate companion who will “bear witness” to your experiences, and help you to find the strength to heal. Using exercises that are designed for trauma memory processing.”
“There are many excellent Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques that fit well within this stage of trauma memory processing. In addition, there are newer approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Time-Limited Trauma Therapy (TLTT), Layering, and Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) that have proven to be helpful in trauma memory processing.”
Phase 3: Reconnection
“The final stage of recovery involves redefining oneself in the context of meaningful relationships and engagement in life activities. Trauma survivors gain closure on their experiences when they are able to see the things that happened to them with the knowledge that these events do not determine who they are. Trauma survivors are liberated by the conviction that, regardless of what else happens to them, they always have themselves. Many survivors are also sustained by an abiding faith in a higher power that they believe delivered them from oppressive terror. In many instances survivors find a “mission” through which they can continue to heal and to grow. They may even end up helping others with similar histories of abuse and neglect. Successful resolution of the effects of trauma is a powerful testament to the indomitability of the human spirit. Once Phase 2 of Trauma Practice is completed, personality that has been shaped through trauma must then be given the opportunity for new growth experiences that offer the hope of a widening circle of connections and the exploration of a broader range of interests.” http://www.traumaline1.com/node/108
Humbly, I submit this is the cohesive, best practice model we should now implement moving forward, and I further submit that Presumptive Language relative to PTSD must now be implemented in all compensation legislation guiding Workers Compensation Systems across the country.
I ask our Prime Minister, Madame Premier, Christy Clark, and any others we can bring together to help us, ensure this is a mandate now delivered across the country to better protect the well-being of Public Safety Workers in Canada and most importantly the well-being of their families.
Thank you, particularly Madame Premier, for putting up with my need to protect my peers. Please trust, my intent all along, with all previous engagement, was to get to a place where we could share what is needed openly, and put to rest years of battling over this issue.
Presumption of Illness Language relative to PTSD in Public Safety Workers is a necessity of which time has come to implement such language. The time is now. Thank you for hearing, again, my plea.
I want to wish the Prime Minister and Madame Premier a blessed New Year.
I wish us all now to find some peace.
Be Well.
Regards,
Darren Gregory, Volunteer Curator, The Trauma Recovery Blog (Ex-BC Paramedic).
