Hello everyone and Happy New Year.
Well, I guess I don’t have to tell you I haven’t posted in quite a while. It has been eleven months to be exact. Like all of you, I have been working my way through this COVID world, trying my best to navigate circumstances none of us could ever have imagined only a few years ago. To say it hasn’t been easy is an understatement.
One of the things that has been tough, is sitting on the side-lines, as a retired First Responder, watching all the other First Responders and Front-line workers struggle to survive as the systems they work in fall apart. And as those systems fall apart, they are pushed to do more with less, at their own peril.
I am fed up with, the extent to which services provided by First Responders and Front-line workers, are taken for granted. I want this to stop so I need to get working. It is time for me to speak up and speak out for all of us, for all of them.
I want to completely change the narrative surrounding First Responders to one that recognizes that what we do is “extraordinary.” Not in the sense that we are better than anyone, just very different. And because we are so different, we can have “extraordinary struggles” and may need “extraordinary care.”
Recently I presented at a mental health event here in Calgary. The event, hosted by Community Now Magazine was to encourage mental health conversations within communities. Having a First Responder perspective was a great opportunity to educate the public. I was also asked to contribute an article about First Responders and mental health for the December edition of their virtual magazine.
I feel that posting that article here is a great way to get my blog going again and to explain why it is now called, “Extraordinary People, Extraordinary Lives.” It is for First Responders and Front-line workers, their wonderful families and friends who support them, and the public, with hopes they will have a better understanding and more compassion for those of us who do this work.
Here’s to reconnecting and building a family, a community where we can acknowledge and celebrate the “extraordinary” work we do. I’d love to hear from you.
What are you seeing? What has been your experience? What are the misconceptions? What kind of change is needed? Send me your thoughts here.
