Berks County Fire Chaplains Network

In this episode, Weekend Wrap-up host Kevin Ferrara sits down with representatives from the Berks County, Pennsylvania Fire Chaplains Network to discuss firefighter suicide awareness and prevention.

Berks County Fire Chaplains Network representatives, CJ Ferrara and Kindall Wann provide insight on how they became involved in the fire service and what they do as part of a team to prevent firefighter suicides.

Using statistics from the IAFF, the discussion focused on the increased number of firefighters having thoughts, plans, attempts of suicide as well as the number of occurrences that firefighters harmed themselves but did not commit suicide.   In the United States, it's estimated using the IAFF survey stats, an alarming number of the 1-million career and volunteer firefighters had thoughts of suicide, approximately 89,000.

Guests spoke about how Covid has impacted how support is requested and or provided and how face-2-face interaction is critical.

As the podcast concludes, CJ and Kindall answer some funny, off-topic questions from Pod Decks asking "Would You Rather?"

The Weekend Wrap-up podcast is ranked #6 of the top 15 Fire protection and Safety Podcasts by Feedspot

Episode Links:

Berks County Fire Chaplains Network

IAFF Firefighter Suicide Awareness

Suicide Prevention Resource Center

Canada Suicide & Crisis Hotlines

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