1 week Ago By By Michele McDougall
As deputy fire chief of the Carberry fire department, Grady Stephenson was one of the first responders on the scene of the mass-casualty crash involving a semi-truck and a minibus full of senior citizens in June 2023. Fifteen seniors were killed that day, two others died later. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed.
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99 a X percent off the regular rate. As deputy fire chief of the Carberry fire department, Grady Stephenson was one of the first responders on the scene of the mass-casualty crash involving a semi-truck and a minibus full of senior citizens in June 2023. Fifteen seniors were killed that day, two others died later.
Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? As deputy fire chief of the Carberry fire department, Grady Stephenson was one of the first responders on the scene of the mass-casualty crash involving a semi-truck and a minibus full of senior citizens in June 2023. Fifteen seniors were killed that day, two others died later. Stephenson said that day is something he will never forget, but credits Project Resilience 911 with giving him the mental health support he needed.
And it’s why he is now one of the session facilitators alongside Brandon Police Service Const. Amanda Conway. “Doing those presentations is really helpful and healing for me,” Stephenson said.
Brandon Police Service Const. Amanda Conway, co-founder of Project Resilience 911. (Matt Goerzen/The Brandon Sun) “If I can help others prepare and be able to deal with those kinds of situations — whether it’s a call of that magnitude or something’s bugging you about a minor call that was hard to deal with — helping you pull through that is a huge thing for me,” he said.
Project Resilience 911 is a mental health resource for first responders, frontline workers and military personnel, said Conway, co-founder of the initiative. The goal is to extinguish stigma by promoting mental health services and education so that first responders can acknowledge when they need help, she said. “First responders are dealing with cumulative trauma,” said Conway.
“Over our careers we’ll probably have more than 1,000 singular traumatic events, and we have to acknowledge what we’re feeling and what we’re seeing. But some people still feel like they have to suffer in silence and suffer alone,” she said. Conway came into policing with a degree in social work, a background in probation, and counselling at Assiniboine College.
It was while she was at the college about 10 years ago that she met an RCMP officer who shared her dream of providing mental health services. Even though the Mountie was transferred out of province, Conway kept the idea alive. “One of the biggest pieces,” Conway said, “is giving people the signs and the symptoms so they can recognize in themselves, or in their peers, if someone is struggling, so that we can intervene as early as we can.
“We wouldn’t leave our broken leg for a week before we got medical intervention, and it’s the same with mental health. The longer we leave it, the more it’s going to exacerbate and become more of a problem,” she said. Project Resilience 911 became a reality about five years ago through the BPS wellness team.
Today, it has a board of directors with 12 members and a support team including representatives from rural fire departments, Brandon Fire and Emergency Services, Blue Hills RCMP, Brandon Correctional Centre, Canadian Forces Base Shilo and personnel from the 911 dispatch centre. “We can assess what someone’s needs are and make referrals based on that, whether it’s just peer support or finding counsellors who work directly with first responders,” Conway said. Conway also conducts de-briefing sessions with first responders — and in the case of the Carberry crash, that included community members who may have stopped to help.
Stephenson said he was at that session. “I can’t even begin to express the value of what that did for me, and I think everybody else benefited having the two groups together,” he said. “That was sort of the game changer, when I was at the point to say, ‘I want to be part of this so I can help other first responders as well.
’” Now, almost two years later, Stephenson and Conway have hosted more than a dozen sessions in rural fire departments and communities as far north as Thompson and east of Winnipeg, preparing first responders for how “to process and cope when dealing with traumas,” said Stephenson. “Because you’re never going to forget it. It’s just how you deal with it when it comes up,” he said.
Grady Stephenson, deputy chief of the North Cypress Langford Fire Department, is one of the facilitators with Project Resilience 911. (Submitted) After the crash, Stephenson said he took a break from the North Cypress Langford Fire Department and a three-month leave of absence from his job as the town’s chief administrative officer. He “engaged counselling” and was given a prescription through his health practitioner to deal with some of the symptoms.
“It’s all been beneficial to me,” he said. “I think showing vulnerability is still a tough thing for a lot of people and that’s why we do the presentations, to try to break down some of those barriers and convince people that, yes, it’s OK to tell someone how you’re feeling and that something’s bothering you.” It’s critical that police officers find a work-life balance by having interactions outside of their patrols, Brandon police Chief Tyler Bates said.
“If you’re only talking to the people who are in the back of your police car day to day, you can get pretty jaded and pretty negative with respect to life in general,” Bates said. “The first instinct for most police officers is to retreat, withdraw and find that quiet space where you’re not having to solve anybody’s problems. And that’s the absolute worst thing that you can do if you’re in this profession.
“So I was happy to know upon my arrival here that we have a wellness team constructively dealing with issues as they arise, providing outlets for our membership that are absolutely necessary.” All sessions and workshops hosted by Project Resilience 911 are free of charge, and throughout the year members hold fundraisers to pay for advertising materials and to hold certain programs, such as a suicide prevention workshop. This year’s road race fundraiser is scheduled for June 1 beginning at Assiniboine College.
It will feature a half marathon (running or cycling), a four-person relay and a five-kilometre fun walk. For more information, find Project Resilience 911 on its website, Facebook and Instagram, or send an email to [email protected].
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