(Facebook/River Valley Resilience Retreat)

By Jeff D’Andrea

Rest for responders

River Valley retreat has GoFundMe made on their behalf by local firefighter

Feb 10, 2021 | 5:00 PM

As the River Valley Resilience Retreat is looking to raise $350,000 to create a safe space for first responders to heal, one local firefighter took it upon himself to get the ball moving.

Martin Taylor of the Prince Albert Fire Department and formerly a paramedic started a GoFundMe for the retreat.

The River Valley Resilience Retreat – proposed on land in the RM of Duck Lake – will be a lodge for first responders to talk with their peers who are going through similar situations, receive equine therapy, and take a respite in nature. Taylor said the retreat means a lot to him, as he has seen firsthand what toll it can take to be a first responder.

“I’ve had a close friend that was a first responder commit suicide. That was, I think, because [he felt] he had nowhere to reach out,” Taylor said. “He was a close friend, he definitely could have come to me, but he probably didn’t want to be perceived as weak.”

Taylor said it was important for him to get involved for a number of reasons. He wanted to do his part to “get over the stigma” that talking mental health struggles is a sign of weakness. According to Taylor, the stigma is especially common among first responders, and that it’s difficult to ask for help when you are the help.

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“You don’t want to be looked down upon as weak by your peers. I’ve only been a first responder for over five years now, and in that short amount of time, I’ve seen the toughest people I know,” Taylor said. “You think ‘they’re tougher than me, they won’t have problems’ because I’ve never had problems. But I’ve seen it ruin their career. They’re off on stress leave and they have nowhere to turn to.

“I joined up to be a first responder and paramedic for a reason—to help people,” Taylor added. “If I can help those that help others, it’s that much more rewarding. It’s nice to know that if this does ever get off the ground, that support’s there if I need it. It’s there for those that need it right now.”

(Facebook/River Valley Resilience Retreat)

Michelle McKeaveney, one of the figureheads behind the River Valley Resilience Retreat alongside Jeff Reeder, said that more needs to be done to help those who undergo post-traumatic stress disorder, operational stress injuries, and other situations through their work. There has been a lot of discussions about it like with the annual #BellLetsTalk initiative, but McKeaveney wanted to do more than just discuss.

“We’ve done a lot of talking and a lot of people say when somebody commits suicide from a first responder or veteran demographic, I’ll speak to that, it’s ‘what could we have done, what should we have done, if only we knew we could have helped.’ We figured out a way to help,” McKeaveney said. “We figured out a way they could access some support and be in a safe place to be supervised and mentored. But we still haven’t achieved this, and yet, suicides are continuing.

“So I’m really making a plea—if anybody in Prince Albert, if you have been touched by suicide, if you are a survivor of somebody in your family or friend or your workplace that has committed suicide and you donated a dollar for each one of those people you’ve personally been impacted by—we’d have the spade in the ground by June.”

Taylor’s GoFundMe page and the River Valley Resilience Retreat’s website uses the term “first responders and their families” as their target demographic for their help. But they don’t just mean police, firefighters, and emergency medical services—the traditional meaning of a first responder.

McKeaveney said River Valley takes a much broader view on what a first responder is and includes all public safety and health personnel, doctors, frontline staff, veterans, armed forces personnel, tow truck operators, journalists, and “people working through this pandemic in any type of role that could create undue stress to themselves and have a direct impact on their family.”

“We are trying to cover all those that are exposed to conflict and trauma through their workplace and really assist those individuals to process trauma and crisis in a different way, that models for their children how to safely build resilience and process trauma,” McKeaveney said. “We need to break some patterns and create some new ones.”

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW