Why Now?
First Responder Trauma Services is dedicated to supporting the lives of professional and volunteer first responders and frontline workers - including firefighters, law enforcement officers, EMS pre-hospital transport personnel, emergency room staff, physicians, 911 operators, criminal justice service workers, park rangers, judicial district attorneys, coroners, and their family members - by developing honest and empathetic peer support relationships across all the agencies we serve.
We believe in the importance and efficacy of community outreach and have created a regional peer support team model, whereby active first responders and frontline workers receive specialized training to respond to their colleagues and other emergency response agencies any time of day, every day, all year round.
But Why Now? We cannot do this alone. We need your help to support these vital individuals who are called upon to respond to your need when you are having the worst day of your life.
We understand that the need for a safe space to help first responders and frontline workers manage the trauma they are exposed to daily continues to grow.
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Many first responders and frontline workers struggle with addiction, post-traumatic stress injury/disorder, and other medical and behavioral health issues. The micro and macro traumas they experience on the job accumulate until they can no longer tolerate the emotional and physical stress.
Traditional counseling can be extremely challenging and vicariously traumatizing for non-culturally competent clinicians who are unfamiliar with the landscape of emergency response, and ultimately ineffective for emergency service responders. By supporting first responders and frontline workers to lean into their problems, our culturally competent counselors help them create better outcomes for themselves and better interactions with and results for the communities they serve.
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Here are some ways you can get involved:​
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DONATE: Make a one-time or recurring donation
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VOLUNTEER: Join our volunteer network to help with events or outreach
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SPONSOR: Partner with us to fund programs and expand our reach
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FUNDRAISE: Start your own fundraiser to rally your community around this important cause