International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
By: Gary Meadows
My first Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) class was October 2004, and my most recent was last weekend. Individual Crisis Intervention was presented to a new class of 10 fire chaplains (among others) in Northeastern Colorado. In 1997, as a new pastor in rural NE Colorado, I was asked to join the volunteer New Raymer/Stoneham Fire Protection District and learned CISM training, which has proved to be a heavily utilized foundation for a lifetime of ministry and emergency response services. Fire chaplaincy closely describes the context in which I have been privileged to work for the past 24 years. Being first on scenes and able to help patients, victims, bystanders, and the emergency responders cope and transition into the next phase of a critical incident have been the most vital and fulfilling experiences of my life.
Longevity in one geographic area afforded me the opportunity to witness the value of teaching and applying the wide range of skills and long-haul stress management principles that the ICISF instilled in me, through formal classes, as well as timely practical articles and books. The intrinsic cross-pollination of ICISF trainings has been invaluable in my development as a first responder.
The plains of NE Colorado are vast in square miles and low in population and services (Think six man football and 180 students PK-12th grade in one building). Emergency response is owned by the local communities as volunteer fire departments are the first to arrive and the last to depart. The arrival of law enforcement and advanced medical service is at best 30 minutes, if the weather is good. It is typically 2-4 hours before a coroner can respond and end a scene involving a fatality or unattended death. It is within this environment that fire chaplaincy (or a fire department crisis team) fulfills a vital role to the community or to the individuals and families unfortunate enough to suffer accidents or severe illnesses.
The skills learned via Individual Crisis Intervention and School Crisis Intervention become core when contact with individuals and groups in crisis lasts for a significant time. The necessity to apply critical incident defusing techniques to patients, victims, bystanders, and often the emergency responders themselves, is a part of many traumatic or medical emergency events. The after-care of conducting or calling for a full CISM debriefing only happens because someone has been exposed to the world of CISM and acts proactively to make these important interventions happen. As I consider the past 24 years in the fire service, the ICISF has been the primary influencing organization to the rural fire service of NE Colorado by providing the CISM model of care and the training to fulfill it.
I have been privileged to train 2 generations of fire chaplains in two volunteer rural fire departments. A textbook, in-house protocols, and my garnered resources and experiences forms much of a fire chaplain’s “rookie” year. It is the requirement to attend Assisting Individuals in Crisis and Group Crisis Intervention that awakens new chaplains to the professional accountability and the critical nature of the work to which they are applying. For an individual to receive instruction at an ICISF training, and to subsequently affiliate with it via official membership, brings a level of responsibility and expectation to the “volunteer mindset” that cannot be over-emphasized. To volunteer means one gives one’s heart and soul without recompense, but it does not mean one must be less than proficient and professional as a fire chaplain.
Gary Meadows – Chaplain at Large
FMFD/FMPD
Rocky Mountain Fire Chaplains
The Resilience Resource Crisis Response Team, (ICISF Hotline Team #954)
TheResilienceResource.org
The Story of the New Raymer/Stoneham Fire Chaplain Team
I had been a volunteer fireman with the New Raymer/Stoneham Fire Protection District (NR/SFPD) for about 6 years. Early on January 19, 2004, our pagers sounded at the same time the telephone rang at the parsonage my wife and I occupied as pastors of the Chapel of the Plains church in Stoneham, Colorado. The pager called us to the scene of a one car roll-over with ejection and one fatality. The telephone call informed us that it was “Andi”.
Andi was a 20 year old member of the New Raymer/Stoneham Fire Department and an EMT with a local ambulance service. She was also a member of our church, our close friend’s daughter, and a 2001 graduate of Prairie School who, along with her twin sister, were part of 2001’s Single A State Championship Girls Basketball Team. Our tightknit community was rocked to its core.
It was from this overwhelming wound that the NR/SFPD saw the need for a chaplain team. By virtue of being the only pastor on the Department, I served these needs alone. This event changed that paradigm forever. On that too-cold morning hypothermia claimed the life of a young woman and brought the whole department to its knees. I had prayed at other scenes with many others, but I could not pray there. Not then. Not for this family. Not for so many broken friends. It was the presence of a Colorado Highway Patrolman, who as an “outsider” offered to pray for us, that brought the ministry of a transcendent presence that empowered us to then rise and take care of Andi and her family.
Rural fire departments run on their own people. There are a fair share of TAs (traffic accidents) involving folks passing through the district, but mostly, when the pager goes off, we are summoned to one of our neighbors for what may turn out to be the worst day of their lives. For this reason, the first NR/SFPD Chaplain Team was formed. I had no idea as to how to form a chaplain team. I remember my guiding intent was to, “train you guys to do what I do” (not really knowing exactly what I did!). That October I attended my first critical incident stress management (CISM) class, “Group Crisis Intervention.”
That team met monthly for about 5 years, (1st Monday–Fire Training; 2nd Monday–Medical Training; 3rd Monday–Chaplain Training), then less frequently. It numbered roughly 12 people composed of male and female firefighters, a few firefighter spouses, and a sampling of community members. We determined our mission to be: To assemble and train a group of volunteers able to render spiritual, emotional, and psychological care to our victims, patients, volunteer members, their families, and the community at large. We identified and embraced the values of: Growth, Hope, Professionalism, and Unity.
I left the New Raymer/Stoneham community in 2011 for the neighboring “metropolis” of Fort Morgan, Colorado. I applied to join the Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department (a department with a “city” side and a “rural” side; different funding, different trucks, same people). When I applied, according to the department’s by-laws, I was already beyond the mandatory retirement age of 50 years old. However, my former fire chief in New Raymer knew the current fire chief in Fort Morgan and had sung the praises of fire chaplaincy so effectively that the Fort Morgan Fire Department undertook the work of amending their by-laws, adding riders to their insurance policy, and pushing these changes through the city and county governments. They created the Office of Chaplain where there had never been an Office of Chaplain! I served this department for ten years and trained a three-man chaplain team, this one made up exclusively of active firefighters.
During this 10 year period, the NR/SFPD Chaplain Team waned due to attrition and the advancing age of some chaplains who had not begun their chaplain career until 65+. (Rural fire houses don’t often have the privilege of only letting the young ones play.) At the request of the same fire chief I had left in 2011, in 2021 we began the second NR/SFPD Chaplain Team, this one made up of the children, their spouses, and second generation of community members. This team sponsored and attended their first CISM training this November, Assisting Individuals in Crisis.
Because my first CISM class opened a world of knowledge and skill development that gave me the opportunity to assist individuals and groups in crisis in organizations and agencies far beyond the fire service, I anticipate many of this next group of fire chaplains will serve “their own generation” beyond the borders of their hometown as well.
Many other wounds have happened since Andrea’s Accident. Some have resulted in souls bearing scars or limps for the rest of their lives, but with fewer abscesses and less long-term perturbance because of post traumatic stress. Studies show that the sooner a person in overwhelming crisis can be reached, and a sense of safety restored or they can be transition from the acute stage into the less potent phases of their crisis, the quicker and easier will be their recovery and greater the potential of a positive integration of that crisis into a healthy and unified life.
It is the work of the emergency services chaplain to reach these people and help restore their sense of safety and personal efficacy as soon after (or even during) the event as possible. Everything about the mission of the ICISF can help them do just that.
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