Red Deer fire chief Ken McMullen (second from left) is championing mental health supports for fire, police, EMS and other first responders at a national level during his second term on the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Board of Directors. (Photo supplied)

By Sheldon Spackman

top priority

Red Deer’s fire chief promoting mental health supports on a national level

Sep 20, 2019 | 9:53 AM

Red Deer’s fire chief is continuing his push for strong mental health supports for firefighters and first responders through his role on the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Board of Directors.

Ken McMullen says mental health is currently the number one priority for the board and an issue that’s close to his heart.

“I was a social worker before I came into the fire service,” says McMullen. “Part of my fabric is making sure that we care for our men and women-in-service and it’s front and foremost to myself. Making it a national initiative is really something that has occurred over the last few years across all emergency services like our friends in police, EMS, as well as border security just to name a few.”

McMullen says they’ve each all seen a dramatic increase in the amount of occupational stress injuries that are faced by their respective members.

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen just a huge increase in suicides amongst first responders,” admits McMullen. “So collectively amongst the police services, fire and EMS, we all champion the importance of talking about mental health. As a result, we just need to see some more things come to fruition.”

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Ken McMullen, Red Deer Fire Chief, speaking at the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs in Calgary on Sept. 16.

McMullen says he and his fire chief colleagues from across the country have an opportunity every year to go to Ottawa and lobby government on a variety of issues, including mental health.

“We’re doing a great deal of work in the area of mental health,” he exclaims. “I would say another major priority is diversity and inclusion and making sure that we’re looking at every opportunity we can across Canada to include diversity and inclusion in everything that we do. The third priority that we have right now is to continue to lobby government.”

According to the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs (CAFC) website, the organization continues to ask the government for funding to support interim measures to improve access to mental health care and prevention programs.

In CAFC’s view, there are at least three important points that must be considered when addressing first responder mental health, including PTSD, suicide, depression, alcohol abuse and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Others include the impact of reducing stigma and promoting understanding of mental health and prevention and treatment which are considered equally important.

In 2019, CAFC is asking the Federal Government to carefully consider how the levers of health research can be used to make near term improvements in first responder mental health.

In addition to this year’s budget requests, CAFC will introduce a new set of activities related to mental health and wellness. It will also refine its asks, pending the evolution of existing initiatives.

“One of our missions and vision is to unite the voice of the fire service across Canada, whereby we have the opportunity to correlate different information from fire services across Canada and champion those in all areas of the country. So what’s best practice in British Columbia can potentially be used in Newfoundland.”

Currently in his second two-year term on the board, McMullen says he was first nominated and elected in 2016 and then re-elected in 2018.

“This term will be done in 2020 in September at the annual conference when we do our elections,” adds McMullen. “If I’m still contributing in a fashion and if the initiatives that I’m leading, which are primarily the mental health programs, are still hot items that we need to see more movement on, then I would certainly consider running for a third term.”