29: Finding balance as a helper with Barry Furey

Listen in on my conversation with Barry Furey, a public safety consultant, trainer, and speaker. We discuss resiliency and the movement toward empathy in the public safety world, the importance of upfront training in public safety about how difficult the job can be, and how to look for the good in the bad.

Barry has more than 50 years of experience in public safety, including being directly responsible for the management of large volume communications centers in four different states, and as a fire officer in three. Now he works to improve the lot of telecommunications and 911 centers.

You can find Barry on his website BarryFurey.com; on Facebook or LinkedIn; and you can reach him via email: barryfurey@yahoo.com.

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Manya Chylinski 0:00

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Monia Chelinsky. My guest today is Barry Fury. He is a public safety consultant, trainer, and speaker. And today we talked about resiliency in the public safety world and the movement towards empathy in that arena, the importance of upfront training on how difficult the job is going to be, and how to look for the good in the bad. Enjoy the show. And please look for us on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and leave a review. That's really helpful. Hi, Barry. I'm so excited that you and I are talking today.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Uh, thank you.

Manya Chylinski 0:47

I am too. So let's just dive right in. My first question before we find out who you are is I would like to know if you could have any superpower, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

As selfish as it may seem, I I think invulnerability would be sort of the ultimate uh power. And if you had the ability to overcome every obstacle and be immune from harm, there's certainly an awful lot of good you could do by possessing that particular power.

Manya Chylinski 1:27

Absolutely. Wow, that's a good one. I'm adding that to my wish list. Every time somebody says one I haven't heard of, I'm like, oh, I want that too. So thank you for sharing that. And now, Barry, let's just talk a little bit about who you are and what you do and why you and I are talking about resiliency today.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Okay, great. I have been involved in public safety for over 50 years. Uh I began uh in a volunteer fire department uh back back in 1970 in suburban New York. And in fact, I joined that uh 40 years after my father joined that department. Oh, wow. So I I get some of my public safety uh from my father's family because my grandfather uh was a police officer.

Manya Chylinski 2:20

Okay, oh, it's in your blood.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, it typically, I mean, that is a an expression, but a true expression in many uh many cases. But uh along the way, I have served as a fire officer in three different states and as a 911 director in four. Wow. I retired from full-time public safety in 2020 at my 50-year mark, but I am now involved in consulting uh and training and and speaking on on those issues.

Manya Chylinski 2:59

Wow. Well, first of all, thank you for all the amazing work that I know that you've done throughout those years. I bet you have seen a lot of things happen to people, and and I'm sure things have happened to you as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, uh, yeah, I mean, and you you you certainly you talked about why we're here and the resiliency factor, and that's a big part of it. Uh, I don't know if any people who spend five decades in public safety that don't see or hear something that is just extremely upsetting. Of course, on the other hand, you see a lot of good things uh as well, right? And um, you know, you also have some of those things as you uh indicated happen to you as well. So uh, you know, there's certainly been uh numerous occasions, whether it is uh again, having been a 911 operator at one point during my career path, I've I've certainly heard things. Uh, I think uh many people don't realize that there is no good or bad side of town. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could take uh horrendous domestic disputes in what uh you know might be a gated community. Uh and you know, some people think, oh no, that doesn't happen here. And uh it it does, and certainly there have been uh a couple occasions where I have been the last person uh that talked to someone before they passed. So uh that is one of the things that comes with the territory, right?

Manya Chylinski 4:46

Well, I can see where you're wanting to have the superpower of invulnerability a little bit comes from because I'm sure some of those, some of those things as a as a first responder and as a first first responder, a 911 operator, I imagine that there are some really quite difficult things that you hear and see and witness.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, and I think one of the things from the 911 side of this equation that uh adds to the stress level is that as uh things get busier, and most 911 centers that I know uh of are extremely short-handed, that you don't in those positions many times know the outcome uh of a call. You may uh, in fact, take the call, pass it off to someone else who actually does the dispatch, and the phone's ringing again, and you don't have time or to know just exactly what's happened to that person that, for example, you may have coached through CPR. You don't get a lot of feedback.

Manya Chylinski 5:59

Right. For me, I think that would be so difficult, not kind of knowing the outcome, because I think you want it to be the positive outcome, so you want to know that somebody is okay. Um, and I guess you're you just have to live with that uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, I mean, that's that's a big uh part of it. And perhaps there's also this God complex that people in public safety get, because if it's a really bad call or a really severe emergency, you want to be handling it. You have to develop this confidence in yourself that when everything is going to hell in a handbasket, you're gonna go in there with a garden hose and and and extinguish the fires of hell. Right. So that's it. You you really work for the positive outcome. And as many times as you do get a positive outcome, and many times that you don't, and you know, sometimes we don't prepare ourselves emotionally to deal with that, even though this is a repetitive action. You're you're faced with some sort of problem every minute of the day almost. But you know we don't, especially when I started, we were not prepared to deal with negative outcomes.

Manya Chylinski 7:18

Right. Right. Well, it it sounds like though that the industry, the public safety has changed, and you are starting to pay attention to the mental health side of things and resiliency and protecting the health and wellness of the 911 operators and the first responders and the other public safety professionals. Am I right about that?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Uh yeah, you're 100% correct. There's certainly a long way to go yet. But I read recently, and I can't think of the state, but that the telecommunicators in that state were now covered for uh basically mental health issues. That it was recognized, hey, you should be granted time off, and you should get workers' compensation type coverage for that exposure. And really uh it's not that long now, it's it's perhaps a decade ago, that the uh Northern Illinois University did a study on stress for telecommunicators, and they concluded that uh telecommunicators were exposed to the same trauma uh as uh first responders who were who were on the scene.

Manya Chylinski 8:32

Yes, yes, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And that's even going to get worse uh as we go along. Uh, you know, I indicated every 911 center I know in in the country right now is facing the same sort of labor shortages that we see, you know, especially during the pandemic. A lot of places you would go to McDonald's and it'd be closed inside and the drive-in might be open. Right. But you know, we don't have that option in public safety. There's sort of no alternative center to 911. But what's gonna what is driving the stress even further is that right now there is movement to uh a like a group of technologies that are collectively known as NG or next generation 911. Okay, and and part of that, when it's rolled out, will actually allow people who are reporting emergencies to uh provide live stream video of what's going on to the 911 Center. Wow. So there are people who chose 911 as a public safety profession because they didn't really want to be out there in the mud and the blood.

Manya Chylinski 9:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

But now it's being brought to their front door, uh so to speak. You know, when I go out and talk to groups of telecommunicators, there is certainly an apprehension about, hey, what is that going to do? Do what do I want to watch somebody give CPR while I'm instructing them? Do I want to see Do I want to see a bad accident? Do I want to see an injury to a child? I mean, so yeah, it it's bad enough listening to it, but now you're getting immersed in that experience.

Manya Chylinski 10:19

Right. It's gonna give a whole new a whole new layer to the stress and the exposure. So the podcast is notes on resilience. We've been talking a lot about resilience without using the word, but I'm curious, what do you think about the word resilience?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

If I were to give it a one-word definition, I would say survival.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Because if you do not bounce back from the negative factors that you experience in public safety, you are not going to survive in the profession. You are not going to survive as a sane human being. And in many cases, the people who you are attempting to help are going to survive because you have to maintain focus throughout. I mean, you know, you know, PTSD, what's that? And it was a sign of weakness if you had any emotional response to a call. Yes. Yeah, it was uh, you know, pull your boots up and keep on on trucking. And that's been a really, really big change as time goes on. And I I know when I started, uh, one of the big things on the 911 side, and and you know, we'll we'll talk about my fire experience later, is that you were told, oh, do not get don't display any emotions at all.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

And you know, as a director, as I hired people, I I didn't want that. I wanted somebody who had some empathy for the caller. I'm not saying you break down and cry in the middle of the call because she's certainly not helping anybody, but I would rather have somebody who, after the call, would be like, Whoa gee, I I just need to step back here for a second and got a connection with the caller during an emergency because that is so critical to giving good good service. I've always told my folks be polite, be kind, be it be attentive, because over the years I have seen or received more complaints for people who thought they were dismissed or had a rude experience. Yes. Rather than somebody completely screwed up the call. I mean, it's hysterical. Somebody could have really made an error, but if they're nice, the the caller was like, oh, Jake, I had a great call.

Manya Chylinski 13:12

Right. So, you know, you talk about the the way the profession, both, I mean, we're talking about a couple of things here, but public safety in general, but 911 operators who I like to call the first first responders, and then the people we think of as first responders, fire, police, paramedics. So I still today have spoken to people who talk about, no, I don't let any feelings in. You know, it's important to not have emotions when you're dealing with this. And there, I think there is that. I've still spoken to people who who kind of think of that as a weakness. And I know the professions are moving towards a more empathetic place. How is that going? And what are the sticking points for really everybody kind of embracing that?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

On the 911 side, one of the uh professional associations has a slogan 911 one nation one number. My definition of that is 911 one nation one number, legislated 50 different ways by each state and delivered in approximately 5,500 different manners, because that's about how many 911 centers there are in the country. So I think overall there is an awareness of the impact and the need for allowing yourself to be human. I mean, to each his own in terms of how you want to handle it. And I I mean, and I think from the stoic side, I think some people you always got out outriders. Right, right. So I mean, some folks self-diagnose PTSD and everything else, uh, and you know, oh, I it was raining and I had a flat tire when I went to work, so I don't go to work anymore when it's raining, so I don't get a flat tire. Yeah, no, no, I mean that's the whole, but you know, and what you're saying, and you know, I I guess you can see them both, but I think the industry, public safety in general, is moving in that direction. And I I'm speaking at a international conference in August, and my topic there is get over it, yeah, how you know living in the past sabotages our future success. And that talks about our attitudes towards towards everything. So, yeah, you are still gonna have folks who are part of the problem and not part of the solution to you know, quote an old phrase. I really see a lot of movement in the more, you know, it's okay to be human.

Manya Chylinski 15:54

Yeah. Well, and what we're talking about too is back in the day, there wasn't a lot of institutional or organizational support for there weren't a lot of organizational sports for mental health care or for it is okay for you to take time after this difficult call. What do you think is the role of the organizations or you know, institutions in being supportive of public safety personnel in the difficult work that they do?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Oh, it's a critical component. I know many agencies who progressively over the year, and speaking to all government agencies, have added some sort of an employee assistance program or whatever you want to want to label it, but it's no-cost mental health care. I've seen this the uh startup of many peer support groups, which which I think is also important. Hey, wait a minute, here's somebody who really knows, and uh there are uh quite a number of chaplain corps for people who can find their solace in religious counseling. So I mean, I think it's critical, and I am really happy to see that it is on the increase and the awareness is on the increase, but there's still a long ways to go because sometimes reality uh rears its ugly head. And if you are involved in a disaster, let's say, and there are multiple emergencies popping up one after another after another, and you handle a really difficult call, you may not be able to just step away because there's nobody who's gonna handle that next emergency coming in if you don't answer the phone.

Manya Chylinski 17:50

Right. It's fascinating to hear that your experience and and to be thinking about 911 operators in particular in this way. I think especially you mentioned that it's one nation, one system, but it's really thousands of different centers and different systems. And I know from my experience that they all work on different technologies and some can do X and they can't do Y. But as the public in the US, it's just, oh, I'll call 911 if I need help. And to us, it is this big single entity. So it is fascinating to learn more about some of the challenges, you know, because we call you when something bad happens. For some of us, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to us. And we really lean hard on you. And we have certain expectations that may not be reality given what the system really is.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

That's a great point. There is not universal technology uh involved. Yeah, you uh the phone rings, you answer it, you send, you send help, but several different vendors on all this equipment. Many, while there are national standards uh in terms of how some of the things are supposed to be handled, a lot of the quote standards in the 911 field are kind of like best practices and strong suggestions, but there's no 911 place that comes along to an agency and says, Hey, you didn't do that right. So you've got that to deal with. Training is all over the place. Yeah, you know, some people have literally none. It's it's kind of what I call, you know, we all know plug and play when it comes to computers. You you bring this thing home, get it out of the box, plug it in. Oh, okay. The printer works. You know, I call the training or lack of at some one 911 centers as plug and pray. They plug they plug, they plug, I'm serious, they plug somebody's headset and then they pray they don't kill somebody in the next 10 hours. Wow. Yeah, it's it's uh again, that's getting better. Yeah, but you know, to see the haves and the have nots in public safety. Um I talked about being a fire officer in three different states. In one of the states that I was a deputy chief in, we had an $18,000 annual budget for the fire department.

Manya Chylinski 20:26

For everything you needed to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yes, yeah.

Manya Chylinski 20:30

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

And and so we as in fact we were not as bad off as some folks. We had good community support. Of course, this is back in the in the uh 1990s, and our only what we call Class A engine, or that's actually the pumper that delivers most of the water onto the fire, was older than the apparatus I used back in 1970 when I joined the fire department. Yeah, so yeah. So 911 is not the only thing that is is is variable. Uh right. All emergency services are haves or have nots in this country.

Manya Chylinski 21:43

It's so interesting because again, as as the public, these are in a lot of places, these are things we expect. We can make a call and someone's gonna show up and they're gonna have the right equipment and they're going to be able to take care of it. And I know that is the desire of the first responders and the dispatchers and the operators, but I it I don't think it can always be the case just given the realities of investments and labor and all of those things. Yeah. So what do you think is an important lesson about resilience and compassion that you've learned because of all of your work in public safety?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

As much as possible, try to maintain balance in your life. When your position in public safety becomes almost your identity it really aggravates any issues you you've had to deal with because you almost are dehumanized to a fact in that oh that's officer jones oh that's firefighter mcdougal there there's not even at some point a a first name involved right and there is no concept of what this person is like away from job are they married or do they have kids where do they live they have dogs what are their interests who are they as a person and I mean I can tell you that I dedicated too much of my life and too much of my identity to that it's a little late in life now but that I am doing consulting and doing training and essentially picking and choosing doing it my own point I've got time to spend with my family now that that I never had before. I mean I we had a uh a tornado pass in the next neighborhood uh to us on one occasion uh my wife was pregnant and due in about 10 days and I left her hiding in the bathroom with mattresses and I went I I don't go to work. Wow yeah so that's what you give up. I'm certainly not saying that there's certainly benefits and I mean there's certainly a good feeling I think that you get knowing that you're doing good but the older I get the more I question not the personal sacrifices themselves but the amount and the and and the and the level. Right. Right.

Manya Chylinski 24:29

So you mentioned that you do consulting and I know you do training and so I know that you are working with organizations to you know improve upon what they're doing. So you know what do you think is the most important action or policy that an organization can take to really be supportive of the resiliency for the first responders and the and dispatchers and the like or you know dealing with the trauma that they experience?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I think if I'm going to be focused on one thing, I would say you know we've talked a lot about the support but I think upfront training on the realisms of life is probably the best thing that can be done. Yeah people are working on on support as we talked about with uh employee assistance programs uh etc but I really believe that a greater understanding of number one what to expect and number two how to handle it. Yeah yeah because if you don't know about the EAP or you don't know about other avenues you know who do I contact if I if I have the problem or if you don't know that it's not unusual to feel the way you feel be uh dumbfounded. I mean this that's one of the reasons why any of our new hires during the application process I have always required them to sit in the 911 center and with an experienced telecommunicator and put put a headset on and listen to the calls and over the time over the years I've had more than one person get up from their day in the center and say no thanks this isn't for me. Yeah she called and she said you know uh somebody shot we get those kind of calls here well yeah that's kind of the purpose of 911 so I I think it's really really good let people know what they're gonna expect let them know what to do when that when it happens and learn how to manage that stress and realize hey you're not unusual for feeling how you feel yes I like that you said that that it's normal to experience those kind of feelings and I think that's an important message for anybody who's experienced something traumatic that we don't always do such a great job with.

Manya Chylinski 27:03

So as we're we're getting close to time that we have to wrap up but what's one question you wish I had asked you and how would you answer it?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

I think that question would be what is the worst thing that you have experienced or what's a watershed incident and you know how did it affect you? And obviously for me I indicated that I started public safety in 1970. In 1972 so I was out of high school 18 months or thereabouts I responded as a firefighter to a call that involved a fully loaded school bus uh getting T-boned by a freight train. Oh okay so these riders on the bus were uh sophomores when when I was a senior if I did not know them because we were a fairly small town I knew their older brothers and sisters tight knit tight knit community it you know literally wiped out one side of uh our our our town because of the way the bus route ran uh 40 some odd injured and when I say injured uh I've seen a lot of trauma in my life i'm I mean serious injuries right uh five people dead I wound up uh and this is me at 20 years old uh wound up being a pull bearer for one of the victims because I played sports with them played sports with another um one of the victims and uh a level of trauma and the most I had saw during the rest of my career and I I saw some serious things wow mass casualty incident was a term wasn't even invented yet again back then debriefings PTSD we didn't we didn't know we didn't know and I mean so alternately you know other than perhaps the death of my parents the worst day in my life and the other side the best day in my life it reminded me that as 20 years old um I was not bulletproof. Yeah I was really kind of bumming around I had received a full college scholarship decided I didn't want to go was doing job here job there and by that happened in March um by uh July I had gotten on the sheriff's department signed a dispatch got back into school part-time paid for it myself got my degree uh and really pointed me in the right direction now unfortunately I don't necessarily always remember that lesson and find myself slipping a a little bit but I I've I I've got to say it's you know one of the things that really taught me that there's no guarantee and that how sometimes you have to look really hard but there's oftentimes good buried in the depth of tragedy.

Manya Chylinski 30:23

Yes, absolutely I really appreciate you sharing that story. That sounds like such a difficult experience for so many people but it really looks like it shaped your life and the things that you do. So thank you for that. Now I typically ask people what would you tell your 18 year old self about resiliency? But I feel like maybe you just answered that and what you learned from your experience at 20 but is there anything you would want to add to that?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Other than sort of combining that there's no guarantees and you know spend your time wisely and look for the good and the bad it's so easy to find the bad in the good sometimes or dismiss something but really take a look say okay what what can I learn from this that's going to help me in the future yeah yeah oh Barry this has been such a fabulous conversation thank you for sharing so much I know that you do speaking you training and consulting so how can our listeners reach you? The easiest way is probably at my website Barryfury.com okay or by email uh my name Barry Fury B A R R Y F-U-R-E-Y at yahoo.com.

Manya Chylinski 31:42

Excellent and we will put links to that in the show notes for everyone to make it easy. Barry thank you again this was a wonderful conversation and I appreciate the insight into the world of public safety.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

You're welcome.

Manya Chylinski 31:55

All right bye everyone thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. So if you'd like to learn more about me, Mania Chelensky, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences. And I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership, to build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about visit my website www.maniachilinsky dot com or email me at mania at maniachilinsky or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much