South Alberta Fire Academy Students Participate in Resilience Training

The South Alberta Fire Rescue Academy (SAFR) officially launched in September of 2023 and is coming to the end of its first academic year. Prairie Rose Public Schools (PRPS) has ensured there is a psychological educational component to most of the academies within the division and SAFR is no exception.  

Greg Godard, Psychologist with PRPS explained, “all firefighters on the job with be exposed to traumatic material. They won’t necessarily be traumatized but there is a fairly high likelihood they will come across fatalities, they’ll have to talk to parents of someone who has died, or they may be exposed to body parts or dismemberment. It’s work in which they are exposed to highly traumatic material.”  

Superintendent of PRPS Dr. Reagan Weeks approached Godard at the beginning of the academic year about creating a course for students or SAFR to preventatively help them prepare for being exposed to traumatic events. Following conversations with Eagle Butte Vice Principal Lyall Foran and Medicine Hat Assistant Deputy Fire Chief Douglas Gill, Godard created a curriculum on building up resilience. Godard created four modules that he delivers in-person to the students at both Eagle Butte High School and Senator Gershaw School, which are in addition to the online mental health components of the firefighting curriculum that are based on a program used by many other firefighting academies.  

The intention behind Godard’s resiliency curriculum is to prepare the students to be exposed to traumatic material, which can make it easier for them to deal with at the time while also giving them skills they need to cope with it afterwards.  

SAFR is a three-year program and Godard wanted to build a curriculum where the students would be learning something different each year. This year he is focusing on building resilience, making the course more about prevention while still talking to them about trauma.  

While he is still working on the curriculum for next year, which will be four modules or possibly more, Godard wants to borrow from the program that Medicine Hat Fire uses and incorporate material from it into the SAFR curriculum. In the third year, he’d like to encapsulate all that was learned in the first two years along with adding in some new material.  

“I wanted to be somewhat cautious and not throw all the trauma at them. At the same time, I want them to know how serious what we are talking about is, it can ruin their lives and marriages if they don’t have the ability to tolerate and respond well to trauma. I want to be cautious not to overwhelm, but also not to under respond or under prepare them,” stated Godard. “We are working to ensure we are not only teaching them how to prepare for responding to the physical challenges of firefighting but also for the psychological and mental challenges, that to me is the key message I want the parents of these kids to know.”  

By Samantha Johnson, Prairie Rose Public Schools Content Writer