Saving Public Safety: Let’s Make It Go Viral!

Over at The Code Green Campaign, they’re doing a hashtag campaign to raise mental health awareness among public safety personnel.

Shout out to the folks at Brattleboro Retreat, specializing in mental health rehab for public safety personnel.

Shout out to the folks at Brattleboro Retreat, specializing in mental health rehab for public safety personnel.

Simply put up a sign with “Code Green Campaign” and #savingpublicsafety on it.

Snap a pic of it in your rig or ambulance station, and share it with the #savingpublicsafety hashtag on Facebook, Twitter and all your social media outlets. Get creative, and have fun with it.  Let’s see if we can make it go viral.

And on that note, I have a request for my readers.

I’m doing a lecture next week at the Tennessee Emergency Preparedness Summit in Jackson, TN called “Saving Your Own Life: Confessions of a Clinically Depressed Medic.” It’s based on this column I did for EMS1.

In this talk, I have two goals: to de-stigmatize and humanize mental illness among public safety providers so that more of our brethren will reach out for help rather than taking their lives, and to honor the memory of those who have taken their lives.

I want to put a human face on public safety suicide. I want people to realize that face looks very much like their own.

To that end, I need pictures of EMS and public safety providers who suffer from mental illness, and pictures of those who have committed suicide. These pictures will be part of a photo montage set to music at the beginning and end of the lecture.

It will be tasteful, and it will not dishonor the memory of the fallen.

I want the blessings or permission of the families to use the photos of their loved ones in this way. If you know or work with any who have been touched by provider suicide, send ’em my way. I want a good photo of the deceased, and the date of their birth and death. If they’re willing to share their loved one’s story, I’d like to know that, too, and I’ll only share what I’m specifically given permission to share.

And if you’re an EMS or public safety provider, and you suffer from depression, PTSD or anxiety, I’d like your photos as well.

Shoot a selfie, holding a sign with your diagnosis and the hashtag #savingpublicsafety, and the words “Code Green Campaign.”

13025019

Shoot your pics to me at [email protected]

Get ’em to me as soon as possible, and thanks!

Browse by Category