2/13/18 Taking Care of NIMO Effort

NIMO, both as an organization and as individuals, has become the go-to group for putting on memorial services for fallen firefighters.  The reason is not that we are the only ones with a particular skill set; it’s more that as full-time teams, we are always available to support the needs of Fire and Aviation Management (FAM).  And there is nothing more important to FAM or NIMO than honoring our fallen and doing so quickly.

But, while every NIMO is honored to serve, the downside to repeated calls for help is often the stress placed on emotional/mental well-being.  It often has effects not just up to & during a memorial event, but on the personal lives of those involved, manifesting in stress, health issues, depression, or even complete melt downs.

In addition to memorials, there is the day to day stress of very busy work lives, constant travel, and an increasing number of demands from across the entire nation, balanced with family needs, all of which are loaded on a finite number of people; there are only 30 NIMOS.

During the 2017 NIMO All Hands meeting at Grey Towers in Pennsylvania, NIMO decided that in thinking about its future, we needed to think about how we take care of our own.  With IC Bob Houseman leading, a small group began Friday, Feb 9^th,  to think about clarifying the scope of such a project, identifying the actions needed and assigning duties. 

Being considered are:

• FAM priorities  (Plates are full, FAM needs our help, are we allowed to say STOP)
• Identify training for individual awareness and self-assessment
• Organize better to support an individual with an emergency need
• Develop processes related to personal check in and/or SOPs 

Like every other group in the Forest Service, NIMOs have been impacted by family emergencies, health crisis’s, mental or emotional melt downs, too much work & travel, too little time with family, and many other things.  Friday’s call resulted in some concrete steps.

We are working on a three pronged approach: Preparedness, Response and Recovery and each member of the team is involved in one of the three groups.

• Preparedness: This group will be working on how we build resilience, reading and class opportunities about dealing with compassion fatigue, grief, stress, etc and learning to recognize when someone is showing signs of being overloaded.
• Response: This group will be working on encouraging NIMOS to name Care Team members – people they are close to who would be part of a support group should they or their family need it. These team members can provide an ear to listen, help with pay and travel issues if there is an injury or fatality, support a spouse or anything else.
• Recovery: This group will be working on SOPs for NIMOs following a stressful event like a memorial. It will include reading/videos, agency options for support like EAP, calls from a Care Team etc.

 If you have any ideas that have worked for your office or other group, please share. We’d like to build a workable program and we know many others in the Forest Service face the same issues. Let’s learn from each other!