As emergency responders, you are so focused on taking care of others that you might forget to take care of yourself. That can make you vulnerable to burnout, depression, PTSD, and other behavioral health problems associated with an already stressful job complicated by a pandemic. Learn about the three primary skills (we call them the Three Pillars) that are most frequently associated with resilient responses in the fire and EMS community. These are skills that you can learn and practice to help prevent the effects of psychological distress. We will then guide you through three activities – one for each of the Three Pillars – so you can create your own tools to help strengthen your resilience for dealing with traumatic stress.

Volunteer fire and EMS agencies are experiencing challenges with recruitment and retention of personnel. This lecture will outline how departments can successfully recruit and retain personnel for their agency using current resources. The lecture will be based on a three-year doctoral study on retention and offer participants research-based/proven strategies to reduce turnover and increase recruitment among all generations of volunteers. Attendees will not only learn strategies to help overcome the biggest barriers to retention and recruitment of emergency personnel, but through both discussion, review of a planning document and hands-on activities, will be able to go home and draft a personalized plan to increase and maintain members.