Addressing Occupational Trauma with Resilience Training

The Center for Suicide Awareness and Medical College of Wisconsin Advanced Healthier Grant are working together to provide Master Resiliency Training to Wisconsin First Responders. First Responders are exposed to stressful and traumatic events daily. Because of this first responders are at a higher risk of suicidal thoughts, suicide, depression, anxiety, moral trauma, and post-traumatic stress.

When First Responders are able to show up to work with the resiliency tools they need, it will have a positive impact on their emotional, physical, and social wellbeing and have an impact on the healthcare system and the communities they serve.

The aim of this training is to reduce stress, depression, and suicidal risk for workers, improve services in the field, and reduce workforce turnover rates in Emergency Services. A key component to a comprehensively fit employee is resilience. We are not born resilient; we learn to be resilient through our life experiences. Being resilient provides one with the ability to recover and grow in the face of stressors and ever-changing demands placed on them.

This vitally important series of three-day training programs will provide attendees with the necessary tools, through a series of dynamic and interactive modules, that will allow them to return to their respective agencies with a new philosophy of resilience within their department’s culture.

This evidence-based training, which is also utilized by the FBI Academy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, will provide impactful skill sets as well as a self-awareness about how the work of our First Responders can and does take a toll on their mental health.