Photo courtesy of South County Fire.
January 28, 2025
Behavioral Health Crisis Outreach Response and Education (BHCore), a new School of Social Work research and innovation center, held its first behavioral health training for firefighters and emergency medical services staff on January 17.
BHCore’s mission is to reimagine how firefighters, emergency medical providers and others deliver emergency and crisis behavioral health services and to transform how those dedicated responders are recruited, trained and supported.
These training programs are intended to help build the alternative response infrastructure that sends mental health professionals to mental health and substance use calls, which have become a large portion of fire departments’ work. Many cities and counties across Washington are currently growing alternative response programs.
Jennifer Stuber, co-founder and executive director of BHCore and associate professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work, explained that these trainings will fill a void for first responders who have not always felt equipped to respond to mental health and substance use calls. “It’s really important that we prepare them to do the work and that they feel good about it, because otherwise they don’t feel like they can handle the call,” said Stuber. “That’s going to also lead to their sense of burnout and compassion fatigue.”
The Seattle Times and several other local news outlets provided coverage of the training, which was held at South County Fire’s headquarters in Everett and attended by about 50 firefighters from nine fire departments across the state.
To read more about the coverage of the BHCore trainings, click the links below: