Helping the helpers, so they can help others.
Building Resilience in High-Stress Professions: Our FRST Approach
Occupational research has shown that military and first responders who are exposed to cumulative work stress and traumatic events are at a higher risk of developing PTSD-type symptoms, including intrusive trauma reminders and physical sensations such as pain, sweating, nausea, or trembling. Some people have vivid flashbacks that make them feel as though the trauma is happening again, while others have intrusive thoughts or images and nightmares. Even less intense stress or trauma exposure can lead to persistent worry, low mood and motivation, and loss of job interest. These adverse stress reactions can cause physical, behavioral, family, and social relationship problems, and they are more common among high-stress professions than in any other public service profession. For example, military and first responder populations are at an increased risk of heart disease, suicide, divorce, and general burnout.
Our approach in our Frontline Resiliency and Support Training program (FRST) is to be flexible and adaptable, able be delivered in-person or virtually to different populations in a variety of ecological contexts. Our educational framework is based on four key components that are consistent across all adaptations: a family psychological health check-in, family-specific education, a family narrative timeline, and family-level resilience skills. These components are delivered through six to eight skills training sessions that can be customized to meet the needs of individuals, couples, families, or occupational groups, including first responders, military teams, and others. Some sessions may include children, while others may be geared towards parents only. We also use virtual connections to include distant family members and relatives, such as grandparents or siblings, at critical times.
Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.
Nido Qubein
If screening identifies clinical treatment needs, FRST refers families to appropriate providers to receive the necessary care. In addition, our pre-enrollment screening process helps identify families who would benefit most from selective or indicated prevention strategies. We are committed to helping families receive the right level of care, whether that means connecting them with other providers or delivering our own services to meet their unique needs.
Our sessions have several educational goals, including stress knowledge, family perspective, shared understanding, communication, stress management, effective problem-solving, child development, and other community resources available. Through our sessions, families learn to identify triggers that cause unhelpful stress reactions and how those reactions can impact family cohesion, communication, routines, and parenting activities. They also work together to create a shared understanding of their family’s historical experiences and develop a common emotional language that helps them communicate more effectively.
Their facilitator coaches family members in cognitive-behavioral skills that help them rebuild and strengthen their resilience, and homework exercises promote emotional regulation, goal-setting, problem-solving, and stress reminder management. Families learn how to define problems clearly, implement effective solutions, and set achievable goals. We also concentrate on child development and help families promote it even when they are coping with stress. Finally, our facilitator may brief participants on community resources and encourage socially isolated participants to reestablish family and friend relationships.
Your mental health is a priority. Your happiness is an essential. Your self-care is a necessity.
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FRST has been extensively studied and these studies have revealed some significant findings. For instance, our pretest/post-test has shown that parental anxiety and depression symptoms improved over time for both parents, and significant reductions were found in children’s difficulties and prosocial behavior. Researchers also found that participation in the FRST program provided durable improvements in parent and child psychological health outcomes, with parental psychological adjustment playing a significant role in child adjustment. In addition, participating parents consistently reported seeking out the FRST intervention to help them manage their child’s distress and to be better prepared for future tension. And, they found that the information and skills they learned helped everyone in the family.
Other studies have shown that FRST has been effective with active-duty military families, resulting in increased positive coping, prosocial behaviors, improved family functioning, and improved parent and child behavioral health outcomes that are sustained over longitudinal follow-up. Researchers have observed that an adult’s occupational stress can reverberate throughout all family members, underscoring the relevance of addressing psychological distress across family systems.