We soon will gain our 10,000th follower for our Facebook page and we are thankful for the support of each of you. We ask now that you share our page with your friends so that we may continue to grow in our efforts to provide a forum for providing behavioral health care for our emergency services personnel and their families.
Since many of you have joined us this past year, we would like to explain what we are all about. Our Team began on 2007 as the Charleston Firefighter Support Team following the tragic deaths of nine Charleston firefighters in the Sofa Super Store fire. Our initial mission was to support the Charleston Fire Department members and their families during this troubling time. As time went on, many other emergency services personnel and their families reached out for help to us as well. As our Team grew, we expanded outside of the CFD, first to three counties, then to eight, and now to twenty-three counties in the lower portion of our State. We also continue to provide service to anywhere in South Carolina upon request. We are fortunate to have Team Coordinators in five regions of the lower state, the original in North Charleston, the Pee Dee Region in Florence, the Grand Strand Region in Myrtle Beach, the Lower Coastal Region in Ridgeland, and the Savannah River Region in Williston.
Several years ago, we realized that to serve folks appropriately, we need to retool our Team’s structure. Just being the Firefighter Support Team was not sufficient to represent all that we were embracing. While “First Responder” is a widely used term, we felt that it did not recognize those in EMS and 911 Telecommunications appropriately. Hence, we created and trained a new Lowcountry EMS Support Team in 2017 and a 911 Telecommunicator Support Team in 2018. All three of our Teams now function together under the original 501 (c) 3 organization. If there is a need for a response for help that needs all of us, we assemble a group of peers from each of the Teams to respond. We are blessed to have dedicated members of all three teams, including EMS and 911 Coordinators, to oversee and assist their members as needed. The point to all of this is that if you are a firefighter, EMT/Paramedic, or 911 Telecommunicator, we stand ready to help you with folks that know where you have been.
Additionally, we are absolutely blessed to have twenty Behavioral Health Clinicians in various locations around our five regions that provide a higher level of care and a place where our peer team members can send those needing counseling. It has been proven repeatedly what an amazing group of people can do when joined in a mission of taking care of you and your loved ones. We also have assisted emergency services personnel anywhere, in any state, through a comprehensive referral system that has been developed over the years.
Let me close by explaining our position on taking care of our Law Enforcement brothers and sisters and their families. We absolutely “Back the Blue” and have aided them as well. Our Law Enforcement community has a wonderful support system already in place with either peer teams in their departments, the Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, the South Carolina Public Safety Chaplains’, Support One, or through the South Carolina Assistance Program (L.E.A.P.) led by the Reverend Dr. Eric Skidmore. We proudly support all that they do in taking care of our Law Enforcement community. We stand ready at any time to assist them as well.
We hope you will continue to support all the organizations that support you. We are here for you at any time, on any day, by calling 843-609-8300. Please call us and let us help!
Gerald