Mental health has long been the silent crisis in public safety — a hidden weight carried by countless first responders who are trained to be strong but rarely trained to be vulnerable. In the Lexipol webinar, “The Firefighter Mindshift: Leading the Behavioral Health Reset,” a group of fire service leaders and behavioral health experts provides a roadmap for cultural transformation in the fire and emergency medical services.
The panel includes:
- Battalion Chief (Ret.) Bruce Bjorge, Director at First Arriving & Founder of OG Society
- Jaime Brower, Vice President of Peer Support & Clinician Training & Certification, Lexipol
- Chief (Ret.) Dave Funkhouser, City Administrator, City of Kiel (WI)
- Deputy Chief Billy Goldfeder, Loveland-Symmes (OH) Fire Department
- Deputy Fire Chief Darin Wallentine, Sarasota County (FL) Fire Department
In this article, we’ll examine key themes from the discussion, structured around the 2025 Firefighter Safety Stand Down campaign’s RESET model: Recognize, Educate, Strategies, Empower and Training. While there have been recent improvements in the overall fire culture in how behavioral health is viewed and treated, there’s still plenty of room to make improvements to save lives and elevate well-being.
The 2025 Safety Stand Down: A Behavioral Health Reset
Held during the third week of June, Safety Stand Down is an initiative backed by organizations such as the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). This year’s theme, “Break the Stigma: A Behavioral Health Reset,” invites fire and EMS agencies to focus daily training efforts on the five RESET pillars.
As Deputy Chief Darin Wallentine explains, “Ultimately, the goal of Safety Stand Down is to reduce the number of preventable injuries and deaths in the fire and emergency services.” By taking a direct approach to confronting the stigma against seeking help for mental health in the fire service, leaders can begin to save lives from the inside out.
Watch a clip:
Recognize: Know Your People and Watch for Deviations
Recognition starts with something deceptively simple: paying attention. Dr. Brower stresses that behavioral warning signs are often subtle and easy to miss if you don’t first know what “normal” looks like.
It’s critical that you know and care about your people, she says. “And then … you can notice the deviations from baseline behavior.” Whether it’s a shift in humor, withdrawal from coworkers or changes in sleep, early recognition depends on knowing your team deeply and caring enough to act.
Equally important is having a response plan. “You don’t want to brush them off … you don’t want to leave them hanging,” Brower notes. ‘You want to get them attached to the right people and a soft handoff” to available wellness resources.
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Educate: Mental Health as Performance Science
Education on behavioral health must be treated with the same seriousness as operational readiness. Dr. Brower encourages a paradigm shift: Think of behavioral health as performance science. When we know our tactical performance is lacking, we naturally understand we have to work to get better. But when it comes to not sleeping well or feeling depressed, we rarely see that as an opportunity to improve.
By reframing behavioral health as an aspect of human performance — grounded in neuroscience, sleep science and stress physiology — leaders can help shift attitudes from skepticism to science-based support.
Strategies: Normalize Help-Seeking Behavior
When Chief (Ret.) Funkhouser retired, a conversation with fellow retirees warned him about the emotional aftershocks that can hit months later. “After about six months, all that stuff you’ve been isolating in your mind slowly starts coming up,” they told him.
And it did.
“Thankfully, I was humble enough to recognize and realize that therapy is cool,” Funkhouser says. “If I’m not okay after 30 years of doing this job…. I can guarantee you guys need help too.”
His brutal honesty highlights a critical strategy: Leaders must model vulnerability. Organizations must go beyond lip service and actively support behavioral health resources like professional counseling and peer support — ensuring everyone involved is well trained, accessible and judgment free.
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Empower: Lead by Example, Regardless of Rank
Empowerment isn’t just a top-down thing. As Brower puts it, “You can be a leader and not have the rank.” The culture begins to shift when people at all levels speak openly about using mental health resources.
She recalls a chief who casually mentioned after a tough call that he had a therapy appointment coming up. “It is perfectly okay to go and have a conversation with somebody … I do it too,” he tells his team. That admission created a ripple effect in the fire house, as others on his crew recognized the need and followed his example.
One caveat: “Leaders need to know what their resources are. And … use the resources themselves,” Brower says. “Not just, ‘I’m sure it’s good. I’ve never used it.’ It’s great when you know the resource yourself.”
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Empowerment means creating space for conversations, offering real support instead of threats of reassignment, and continually checking in with those who ask for help.
Training: Beyond Checkboxes
It’s not enough to say “we have a peer support team” or offer a one-time seminar. As Brower points out, “You can tank your own program if it’s not culturally competent.”
Effective behavioral health training requires:
- Regular, updated education for peer support teams.
- Clinicians who understand the fire service culture.
- Leaders who understand when and how to deploy resources.
- Follow-up protocols to ensure continued support.
Brower explains: “Lots of people think we have these tools and they just pop out of the box and heal people. It doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to know how to use them.”
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Have the Courage to Care
Above all, the panelists reinforce a truth that research has long supported: Connection is the most powerful tool we have for suicide prevention. “Social connection is the hands down most effective thing that we can do to protect mental health and prevent suicide,” Brower adds.
That connection doesn’t require perfect words — just willingness. Sit down. Share coffee. Ask real questions. “Start somewhere. You don’t have to have all the right words. In fact, you can be a disaster,” Brower advises. “Just know where you’re going to refer them to after you start. You’ll make a world of difference.”
Bruce Bjorge echoes this sentiment with a reminder of what’s at stake: “In the absence of initiating that action, having that courage to care could result in you having a lot of regret because you saw something and you didn’t act.”
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Resetting the Culture — It Starts with You
The “behavioral health reset” called for during the 2025 Safety Stand Down is not a fad or gimmick — it’s a long-overdue cultural shift that can redefine what it means to serve in fire and EMS. For too long, behavioral health has been treated as an individual burden, something to manage quietly, often in isolation. This panel discussion reminds us it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it can’t be that way if we want to protect those who protect others.
The journey to cultural change is not easy, and it is never complete. But it starts today, and it starts with each of us. Whether you are a recruit or a chief, a dispatcher or a field medic, you have a role to play in making behavioral health a permanent, high-priority part of the fire service mission.
As Bjorge says, “It takes courage to initiate that outreach,” but failing to act when something feels wrong can leave a lasting mark of regret. “Having that courage to care” is the kind of leadership every firefighter, every EMT, every dispatcher deserves—from their officers, from their peers, and from themselves.
So, as we close out another Safety Stand Down, let’s do more than just talk about mental health. Let’s lead with it. Let’s listen, share, educate, train and support one another — not just for a week, but as a way of life. Let’s have the courage to care and the strength to act. Because nothing less will truly keep our people safe.
