Are You A First Responder Family? Let's Take This Journey Together.
Let me share the tools that have helped me, my family and my clients.
Is Your Family Hurting?
First Responders have unique stressors that they deal with on a regular basis. No one else understands what it's like to support their families while managing these stressors.
The First Responder Family Resilience Academy is here to support families just like yours who are struggling with the impact of being a First Responder Family.
First Responder Families have such unique circumstances that they deal with on a daily basis, that overtime can hurt a family. In your day to day life this might show up as:
- conflict amongst spouses or children
- anxiety
- trouble sleeping
- struggling to support your children and your spouse
- you and your spouse are struggling to connect under the weight of these stressors
- you are not sure how to talk to your children but know they are having a hard time as they are acting out, worrying, sick and/or not sleeping well.
"The online program has been a great fit for our family, being able to complete the modules on a looser timeframe works really great for us. I do want you to know how much impact it has had on my husband. He had a complete “aha” moment in just the first module. He was interested in the course, but I am not sure that at the time he was committed. This completely changed after he completed the first module. He told me he never knew how much his PTSD diagnosis was affecting our family and he vowed to put into practice the tools he had learnt from this course and counselling sessions with his trauma therapist. I have seen a marked difference in him, and his efforts to universally address the impact of his acquired work injury. The First Responder Course has given us as a couple as wells as our family an avenue to safely discuss things, how we can support each other and how we can work with his injury together. We as a family are SO grateful! With much gratitude, Nicole"
Nicole
First Responder Spouse
The Three Pillars of The First Responder Family Resilience Academy
We believe that in helping First Responder Families improve family connection, family wellness and family resiliency, they can manage the specific stressors of the First Responders Lifestyle.
Family Wellness
Learn to identify the impact of the First Responder lifestyle and stress on family members. Learn strategies to manage the exhaustion, emotional numbing, suicidal ideation that can come from ongoing stress and anxiety levels. Learn how to improve sleep, health and coping in your family. Develop A Family Stress Team!
Family Connection
Learn how to improve the relationship with your spouse so you no longer feel lonely in your marriage or feel like opinionated roommates. Learn ways to communicate with your family during stressful times so that you can reduce the fighting that leads to disconnection. Learn how to support or respond to your family members if they feel cranky or miserable.
Family Resiliency
Learn strategies to keep the family together and work together to manage these unique stressors. Improve the ability of the family to adapt to situations as they arise. Learn how to come together as a coparenting team. Help your children with anxiety. Improve communication, connection and cultivate family growth. Instill family protective factors.
"I would highly recommend this program. It's good to have this information. Valuable insight, awareness and constructive information. We learned indicators to watch for. It opened active communication."
First Responder, Detective
The First Responder Family Resilience Academy is the first of it's kind. It's a six week LIVE online education program designed for First Responder Families. You will learn strategies to manage the effects of this lifestyle. We are not going to go over basic stress management strategies that anyone could look at. In this program you are going to learn specific strategies to support you as a first responder family. How to take care of yourself, so you can support your spouse and together you both can help your children thrive.
"I want to say thank you for stepping up and doing the work that needs to be done for families. I was diagnosed with PTSD and MDD. My family went through hell and back. I've thought a lot about how there needs to be education programs to support the entire family as a whole as opposed to just the first responder. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. The work you do is brave and so necessary. "
First Responder Paramedic and Dispatcher.
Here's How The First Responder Resilience Academy Is Going To Help You:
The Outline for The First Responder Family Resilience Academy Is The Following:
Six Modules That Will Help You Learn the Three Pillars of the Program.
"Kim is a great facilitator. We have learned to have open communication at home. We gained a better awareness of care for self and our family."
Sergeant
Here's How The Program Works:
Format:
This program is delivered live online, in the comfort of your own home- you can wear your pajamas and sit back with a cup of tea.
Live sessions allow interactive question and answers. It will be recorded for replay for those who are unable to attend live. You are invited to email in your questions to have answered during the live session, if you can not attend.
Replays:
Within 24 hours of the live session, access to the replay will be sent via email. You will have access to the video replay for 30 days.
Live Sessions:
One Hour once a week.
Community:
Weekly Live Question/ Answer Support Session.
Discussions Within each Module.
Optional Access to a Private Closed Facebook Community Group.
"I really enjoyed the active reflection which I don't always allow myself to do. The learning was very good and beneficial. There are quite a few things we decided to implement. "
First Responder, Detective
Frequently Asked Questions
Individuals and Families of Careers providing first response, crisis intervention in:
~Fire
~Law Enforcement
~Paramedic/EMT
~Corrections
~Emergency Dispatchers/ 911 Operators/ Communications
~Rescuers
~Military
~Community Emergency Response Team
~Mental Health Professionals
~Emergency Room Staff
etc....
If you are Single?
If you do not have children?
If you are divorced?
If your children have grown?
If you are a dual first responder family?
Join us! This program is not only for intact families currently parenting children. We can all learn healthy lifestyle skills, no matter our life stage.
This program is designed for first responder families who want to identify and learn strategies to manage the unique stressors of this lifestyle.
If you're ready to learn new strategies to improve your family's health, connection, communication and are willing to try new strategies to protect yourself and your family, then this program is for you.
Please note this is an educational program and not therapy. Anyone concerned about symptoms of mental illness should seek professional support.
You can work at your own pace on the modules. It takes approximately 18 hours to complete. You have six months to complete the modules with six weeks of weekly live support.
In order to access the content each week, you will need to log into a program with a username and password that you will create when you register. If you have logged in and watched my free video training, then you have everything you need to access the course material.
There are worksheets in Adobe Format that you can download. Adobe has a free program you can download to open the documents and there is a link to it inside the course platform.
You should have a basic understanding of logging into programs with a user name and password for this program.
Technically, these can be done on a desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone. Keep in mind there are worksheets to print in each module and this is not always available from tablet/phones.
Within 24 hours of the live session, access to the replay will be sent via email. You will have access to the video replay for 30 days.
You will have the option to complete a quiz at the end of the program.
It is up to you to see if your regulatory college will accept this training.
Trainings offered through First Responder Family Wellness Center are accepted for continuing education hours by the Alberta College of Social Workers (Category A).
Here is information that you can provide your regulatory body for this training (you can copy and past it if you’d like):
In order for someone to receive a certificate of completion for this training through First Responder Family Wellness Center, they must complete a pre and post test, a program evaluation and a final quiz that contains no more than 10% true and false questions with a passing grade of 80% or higher. The trainer is a Registered Social Worker. The trainer’s credentials include a bachelor of social work, a clinical registration to provide psychosocial restricted activities and over 20 years of direct social work practice. The trainer is registered with the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) (Registration #3068) and the Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW). First Responder Family Wellness Center training has been accepted by both the Alberta College of Social Workers and the Canadian Association of Social Workers.
14 day money back guarantee, if you are unhappy with the program.
Signing up for continuing education is an investment of time and money. Please take the time you need to decide if this training program is for you.
You can download the slides, handouts and audio practice to keep indefinitely, however, the video trainings are formatted and not downloadable. You have access to them through the library for the duration of your program.
First Responder Family Resilience Academy
Our First Responder trains for their job. This is the training for us as First Responder Families. Sign up to be the first to know when registration opens.
I'm Kimberly Williamson, Founder of The First Responder Family Wellness Center.
As a Social Worker for over twenty years in trauma, mental health and addictions who developed secondary stress while married to a first responder for almost twenty years, who developed operational stress and post traumatic stress injury. We tried many strategies to keep our family healthy.
When my first responder husband developed Post Traumatic Stress Injury, even though I was a social worker with mental health training, I didn't recognize the signs until it had gotten out of hand.
At the time, I tried to find support specifically for what we were dealing with as a First Responder Family. There was a lot of support my spouse could access. Living rurally, we struggled to access support for us as a family. That's what I knew we needed.
We chose to seek counselling, read books and do research about what works for families. Along with the support of family, friends and professionals we were able to get our family back to a place we were happy with.
Taking the framework and strategies we developed to help our family, I began to help first responder families 1:1. Now I've turned it into a live online program so that I can help first responder families around the world.
My goal is to reach the isolated first responder families living rurally to meet them online in their home. My hope is to support and shed light on the darkness of living with the stress as a First Responder Family.
Register Here
Registration Open. 14 day money back guarantee, if you are unhappy with the program. If you have any questions or concerns please email [email protected]
First Responder Resilience Academy Waitlist
Our First Responder trains for their job. This is the training for us as First Responder Families. Sign up to be the first to know when registration opens.
