The City of Tumwater Fire Department was recently highlighted in The Olympian about their participation in a new peer support program to help firefighters and other emergency workers talk about their mental health.

The Olympian article highlights Tumwater Fire’s new membership in the Thurston Peer Support Consortium, a county-wide network of peer support covering the mental health needs of firefighters and EMS workers from nine fire departments across the county. Under the program, eight of Tumwater’s 46 firefighters and EMS employees will be trained as peer support counselors in addition to their regular duties as firefighters and EMS workers. Tumwater Fire just began their membership in the consortium this summer, and the peer support program itself began at the beginning of this year.

As the name implies, peer support is just that: a first step in mental health care where an impacted worker (in this case a firefighter or EMS worker) can reach out to one of their department’s trained peer supports – other firefighters or EMS workers that have personal experience in the field in addition to extra training in counseling and mental health. The idea behind peer supports is that a peer support counselor can understand what an impacted worker may be going through and can help them talk about what is bothering them in a one-on-one setting, and that such supports might be more comfortable than other forms of behavioral health care for distressed workers to seek out when in need. Peers may also be better suited to understanding a distressed colleague’s issues than a spouse or behavioral health professional since they are EMS workers themselves. They can also help connect impacted workers to higher levels of behavioral health care if needed.

Under Washington law, peer support counselors have a limited legal privilege, which protects the confidentiality of communications between the peer support counselor and firefighters or EMS workers that come to them for support in a counseling setting.