NFPA Journal - Spring 2024 - 32

Perspectives
of people in the fire service get into it for
similar reasons. I think sometimes our
childhood trauma and those experiences
are what drive us into the professions
we choose. Why do we seek out professions
that are very adrenaline focused?
That was part of my love for working in
trauma and burns and critical care, and
it's why a lot of people may seek out the
fire service. We need to feed the adrenaline
beast with it.
What are some of the challenges
associated with addressing these
fundamental risks?
You need to understand that, no matter
which community risk we're addressing,
often these people and populations
aren't facing just one risk-in the public
health and injury prevention world, we
call it shared risks. They might be engaging
in youth fire-setting, but also in a lot
of other high-risk behaviors. For prevention
and mitigation of those risks, you
need to understand there may be multiple
factors contributing to the behavior.
How do we find out what they are? How
do we eliminate or reduce some of those?
Those factors can involve almost
any societal problem we can name.
Where do you begin?
You start by knowing you can't fix
everything in a child's life or in a
family's life-food scarcity, poverty,
bullying, substance abuse, all those
sources of ACEs. Instead of trying to
address or solve all of those, you build
up the opposite side of that scale. You
start by trying to build up protective
factors, like building on a child's
strengths-getting them involved in
school activities, helping them build
friendships and other meaningful
relationships. On a larger scale, you
contribute to building community
resources for basic needs that aren't
being addressed, like food banks.
Is there a particularly effective tool
for preventing or mitigating ACEs?
One of the most important is for a child
to have a consistent, caring adult in
their lives. We hope that's parents, but
32 | NFPA JOURNAL * SPRING 2024
Mentor
programs
run by fire
departments
can connect
at-risk kids
with caring,
consistent
adults.
for a lot of kids it may not be. We can
be that one adult, whether it's through
our professional roles, as a neighbor,
or as an aunt or uncle. We can be
the one who cares and is respectful of
that child. No matter how many ACEs
a child is facing or has been through,
that one caring adult can help prevent
or at least mitigate those experiences.
A couple of months ago, Wayne
County, Michigan, where Detroit is,
launched a campaign called " Be The
One. " It's saying if we start being the
one adult who cares about a kid, who
acknowledges when they do something
good, we can really transform a kid and
a family and a community.
How does your program work?
How do you find kids?
In the youth fire-setting prevention and
intervention program that I run, kids
are referred to me for their fire-setting
behavior. We focus on education around
fire safety, but that's not all. We look
at the shared risks and all of the other
things that are going on, so we also start
talking about how we can help them
make better choices. We address ways
to get that fight-or-flight, survival-mode
part of their brain calmed down so that
their command central, prefrontal cortex
part of their brain can kick in and actually
help them make better decisions.
If someone smashes your Xbox, rather
than immediately reacting out of anger,
how do you pause for a second and come
up with different choices about how
to respond? These strategies work not
only in the youth fire-setting program,
but also for adults-these are things we
weren't necessarily taught, either. So it's
about looking at everything that you're
already doing in your community. I'd
say that, without knowing it, a lot of fire
departments out there are already doing
ACEs prevention and mitigation. It's just
not what they're calling it or how they're
thinking about it.
What's an example?
Think of all the fire departments that
have Explorer or Junior Cadet programs.
Those are mentoring programs where
kids come in and have a caring, consistent
adult respect them enough that
they're willing to show them some of the
trade-that's exactly what I'm talking
about. Being that organization that
shows people that you care, that they can
trust you and that you respect them, is
this work in action.
Who do you partner with in this?
I work with a lot of partners: fire departments,
law enforcement, juvenile justice,
youth agencies, places of worship. When
a fire department has gone through its
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NFPA Journal - Spring 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Spring 2024
