The First Responders Mental Health Alliance™

is a nationwide collaboration of first responders and mental health professionals who seek to improve access to effective mental health assistance for first responders. For almost a decade, we have achieved this goal through services that educate them with both clinical and non-clinical resources, while advocating for legals rights and protections against discriminatory responses to the mental health issues that come from their profession.

NON-CLINICAL SOLUTIONS

Mental health education for first responders must go beyond simply raising awareness of the problems; it must provide training on solutions, and the balance of those solutions must tip more towards non-clinical assistance--what first responders can do for themselves and each other outside of a therapy office or treatment center. Although available clinical resources and treatment options are more effective than they ever have been, we must face the reality that more than 80% of first responders will not give them a chance unless we build a better bridge with non-clinical provisions. This fact is supported by an abundance of research on both combat veterans and first responders.

BUILDING A BETTER BRIDGE

How we build a better bridge between first responders and mental health professionals involves providing them an education on responses to the mental health crisis in their culture that equips them with the tools to help themselves and their peers without the need to involve a therapist.


Clearly we cannot expect first responders to receive the same benefits that mental health professionals may provide through any means of self-assessment or self-regulation, but this is by no means a reason to leave them on their own without any education on such strategies, especially since the best and most recent research shows that these strategies work.


We build a better bridge between first responders and mental health professionals through better education and advocacy. Learn how we do this by visiting our services section.