Mental Health Initiative Provides Support for Those Who Support Our Community
By: Orange County Communications and Human Resources Departments
To support the mental health and wellness of our critical responders, Orange County launched a new initiative earlier this year using the Mindbase platform. Focused on providing holistic resource access and confidential post - incident peer support, this effort has helped establish a more comprehensive approach to caring for those whose job is to care for others.
It is, of course, well known that public safety personnel such as those in our Sheriff ’ s Office, Fire & EMS Department, Emergency Communications Department, and Volunteer Fire Companies routinely respond to traumatic situations in the course of their duties. They will never know exactly what they will face day to day, and the impacts of
those responses can be lingering. As professionals, they will continue to bravely serve, all the while carrying the unseen personal impacts long after the traumatic event, or events, transpired.
It is perhaps less well known that many situations require a comprehensive response which can include personnel serving in Social Services, the Animal Shelter, and Information Technology. With that in mind, the Orange County has made the Mindbase platform available to those team members as well.
Mindbase improves Orange County ’ s ability to proactively support our public safety staff by recognizing potentially traumatic responses (including trends of incident responses that might cumulatively become impactful), identifying responders at increased risk of experiencing mental health impacts, and ensuring that those personnel are presented with the opportunity to connect with trained volunteer Peer Mentors within the organization, or utilize outside professional supports. Trauma, and an individual ’ s response to it, are intensely personal. Respecting that, enrollment in the program is voluntary for our personnel. To further promote convenience and confidentiality whenever a responder may have a need, the program takes the form of a mobile device application. It is making a difference. Since launch, resources within the app have been accessed nearly 200 times. So far, some of the primary uses have been to connect to peer support, find local resources, and seek personalized care. It ’ s important to remember that the application, and the Orange County wellness program as a whole, encourage holistic wellness. With that in mind, not all uses of the application are connected to a traumatic event. Some users have enjoyed the program ’ s everyday wellness features such as Mindbase Fitness. Sheriff Jason Smith is excited about the promise of the program. “ Emergency responders are exposed to traumatic events on a routine basis, ” he said. “ There are many calls for service that we respond to and see members of our community in some of their worst moments in life. Our responders and dispatchers handle these situations, and then are tasked to continue handling all other calls that come in. Seeing what we see takes a toll on us, mentally and physically. In the past, only when someone showed signs would we have resources reach out to them. Now, we have a system in place that makes proper notifications when traumatic incidents occur, so we can do our part to support emergency responders in Orange County. We must take care of our people, so in turn we can provide the best service possible to our citizens, ” he added.
Page 7 | October 2024
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