Sergeant creates mental health program for fire department

Macomb Township firefighters are now equipped with new tools for protecting and preserving their mental health, thanks to a program developed by Fire Sgt. James Peterson.

Peterson is the first person from the Macomb Township Fire Department to complete the National Fire Academy’s Managing Officer program. He was recognized for this achievement during the March 13 Macomb Township Board of Trustees meeting. Fire Chief Robert Phillips described the program during his presentation of the managing officer certificate to Peterson.

“The program’s goals are to promote and enhance the professional growth of fire service leadership, while preparing future leaders through a combination of education, linking people and ideas,” Roberts said.

Program participants receive instruction on leadership, community risk reduction, firefighter and community safety, contemporary training issues and analytical tools for decision making, according to Phillips. He said students also gain insight about national response planning and incident management.

“This two-year program comprises four unique courses, requiring the participant to develop and complete a capstone project directly benefitting the fire officers, department and community,” Phillips said. “The capstone project permits the student an opportunity to demonstrate application of course theory and concepts to real life situations.”

This final project is then evaluated through a formal peer review, he added.

“Sgt. Peterson’s capstone project consisted of developing and implementing a comprehensive firefighter mental health program for our department. The program consists of mental health focused training, delivered on a quarterly basis, to all fire department personnel in the entire month of September, dedicated to the prevention of firefighter suicide,” Phillips said.

Peterson wanted to be a firefighter since his youth. He attended Schoolcraft College and Macomb Community College for his education in fire studies, and is also state certified.

“I started as paid on call here, and then when the opportunity became available, I became full-time,” Peterson said.

He said that the Macomb Township Fire Department offers opportunities for firefighters to attend the National Fire Academy in Maryland. Peterson went a few years ago to take a class and learned about the managing officer program. The National Fire Academy’s Managing Officer program is four courses of about one week each in Maryland. They are taught by industry leaders, often fire chiefs from around the country. Peterson began the program in 2019, but COVID-19 caused some delays in completing it and so he could not finish until 2023.

“One of the projects for the classes is you find out something your department can benefit from, training or changes. So that is when you research and do an analysis of your department to find out what would benefit it the most,” Peterson said.

Peterson added he chose to focus his project on firefighter mental health, as he believed there was room for more training on this subject in Macomb Township’s Fire Department.

“You have to get permission from the fire chief, present him with what you think the fire department would benefit from, and you have to pretty much write a paper, an analysis, and present it to the chief, and he says yea or nay,” Peterson said.

Once he had the green light for the project from Phillips, Peterson dove into research. While delaying some of his classes, COVID-19 also provided him the opportunity to do more in-depth research, including speaking with the fire department’s chaplain. He spent about two years developing the program. Once his project was complete in September 2023, Peterson presented it to Phillips for approval. Once he received it, the project was submitted to the National Fire Academy. The academy approved the project in December 2023.

“We are definitely going to implement the program into training. So each year we are going to have a dedicated time, like September is Suicide Prevention Month, we are going to do some type of training on suicide prevention, and then basically what we are going to do, is start off with that, then mental health awareness, following up, different ways of dealing with it personally or asking for help, what kind of help is available,” Peterson said.

In Macomb Township’s Fire Department, training sessions for firefighters are generally held each Monday for about two hours. With Phillips’ approval the mental health program was first put into action as part of training in September 2023. The second section on mental health was incorporated during classes in October 2023, another in November 2023, and the last this March, Peterson said. He served as the manager for the program, which was taught by the department chaplain.

“Every year we are going to get together and try to develop a plan for the following year, and definitely incorporate those classes. It may be a quarterly type of thing,” Peterson said.