With community support, Newark fire expands support group to mental health conference

NEWARK - Newark fire is expanding its peer support class into a mental health conference in hopes of connecting smaller departments to resources.

Amid a nationwide effort to destigmatize mental health struggles among first responders, Newark firefighters Kevin Garwick and Jason Hufford developed a peer support program at Newark Division of Fire at the beginning of 2019.

According to Garwick, the first peer support class at the department was held in February. On March 3-4, an expanded Newark Mental Health Conference will be held at the Hilton Doubletree in Newark.

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"We want to make it a comprehensive and cutting edge educational opportunity for local groups who don't have access to the state level type of training that the (Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters) or the (International Association of Firefighters) has," Garwick said. "This is meant to bring that sort of educational opportunity locally and to offer it for free because we did a pretty extensive fundraising campaign."

Along with an already full peer support class, the conference will address topics including the biology of trauma, compassion fatigue, substance abuse, suicide in the work place, and work life balance.

Jake Clark, founder of Save A Warrior, a program designed to save the lives of veterans and first responders suffering from post-traumatic stress, was also recently added as a speaker at the conference.

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Through fundraising, Garwick's initial goal was to raise enough to pay for half of one class. They ended up receiving enough to pay for one class and half of a second class.

Garwick picked up fundraising again at the end of 2019 and has already raised enough to pay for the conference.

"It was kind of overwhelming, the response I got when I started doing the fundraising. My goal was to raise about $5,000 to $6,000 to try to offset the costs," he explained. "All in all, we've raised a little over $34,000. Like I said, the response from the community has been overwhelming and just great."

In addition to the peer support class, Garwick said Newark fire has collaborated with other Licking County departments to form a county network, the First Responder Peer Support of Licking County. The nonprofit organization includes Newark fire, West Licking Fire District, Heath fire, Monroe Township fire, and Granville Township fire.

"The goal with the county team is to be able to offer the resources that we have to all the Licking County and surrounding departments that don't have the resources the full-time, career departments have," Garwick said, adding most of Licking County's 27 fire departments are volunteer or part-time, yet they have the same traumatic experiences. "...They're dealing with the same mental health concerns that we are, but we have a lot more resources. We want to be able to have an avenue for all first responders to have."

Their goal is to eventually include police, dispatchers, and more to be inclusive of all first responders.

Reflecting over the past year at Newark fire, Garwick said they've come a long way, but still have a long way to go.

"The culture is starting to shift to more accepting, an accepting culture," Gawick said. "There's still stigma concerns, people are still concerned about asking for help...so we're trying to change those, destigmatize mental health in first responders."

Garwick hopes people who attend the March conference can take something back to their agencies that will help any struggling first responder. The agency hopes to hold mental health training annually.

"There's always going to be a need, so we'd like to make it a yearly thing. A big part of it is just keeping it on the front burner, so people are thinking about it and talking about it," Garwick said. "That's the biggest thing - when people are talking about it, it destigmatizes it and lets people know it's OK to not be OK and to ask for help when you need it."

For more information about the mental health conference or to register, contact Kevin Garwick at KGarwick10@gmail.com.