ARCHIPELAGO Critical Incident Stress Management Society - Founded 2005

Tuesday 15th November 2016 at West Midlands Fire Service HQ, Birmingham

Archipelago will be presenting at - a special anniversary conference supported by the IFE marking twenty years of fire-related innovation, research, development. The event takes place at West Midlands Fire Service Headquarters on Tuesday November 15 2016, the day before the FIRE Congress at the same central venue.  The venue is about a 10 minutes' walk from Moor Street and 15-20 minute walk from New Street.  There is limited parking on site and ample free on-street parking in the surrounding streets with no time restrictions.

 

SUMMARY:

We had the great privilege of being asked to co-present at two international fire service conferences in mid-November. Leigh Blaney and I put in a proposal to co-present on the topic of resilience and CISM with an eye to sharing her PhD work and our Langford Stories of the tragic Sarah Beckett Incident and our growing family training. I am the president of Archipelago CISMS society and my colleague Leigh (many of you know) is our clinical coordinator and we have been working together for about 16yrs in various capacities and I have had the pleasure of presenting with her a few times before.

 

The Conferences were held back to back in Birmingham England over two days at the headquarters of Birmingham Fire Service (West Midlands) This is the second largest Metro in the UK and was a fascinating place to be for the conference. 

 

The conferences were being sponsored by the International Association of Fire Engineers (http://www.ife.org.uk). The first focused on research and innovation and attracted fire services mostly from Western Europe on topics ranging from smoke movement in construction to studies on the best sized water droplets for various types of fires to various movement in management and incident command.

 

Our topic was on resilience in the fire service with respect to mental health. The research points to a complex model of reliance showing seven interconnected and important facets of Vancouver Island firefighters methods of dealing with stress and how it plays out in their lives and careers. One of the main takeaways is the pre-incident education, a supportive culture and programs in place all help strengthen the individuals (and their families) when faced with difficult situations.  As it turns out we must have done something right as we were honoured to receive the award for top research presentation from the IFE.

 

The second conference was more of an symposium with panel discussion on three  questions surrounding the idea of integration of the three main emergency services, Police, Fire, and Ambulance.  Again we were able to share the Vancouver Island and Langford specific and arguable the Canadian perspective on what looks to be an eventuality in England and Wales. It will be a time of change in the UK for many reasons  but we are looking with great interest to see what the next steps may be for a more integrated Public Safety Force in the UK.

 

I feel we have helped bring an awareness of the good work we are doing in Archipelago to an international audience and I am thankful for the support of our various organizations in helping us attend and present at these conferences.

Geoff Spriggs

President Archipelago CISMS

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