Search and Rescue Mutual Aid
We bring together leaders from SAR teams across the country to discuss creative solutions to universal problems. From member retention to fundraising to team training - we’re all about bringing the community together and crossing county lines to elevate the SAR profession. Presented by Base Medical.
Search and Rescue Mutual Aid
107: Family Liaison Officer with Moose Mutlow
What is a Family Liaison Officer and why is it an important role?
A family liaison officer can bring your team's professionalism to the next level - but what exactly do they do and how can you take the first step?
Today, we talk to Moose Mutlow - FLO for Yosemite SAR and author of "When Accidents Happen" - who is leading the charge on training FLOs. Moose tells us about his experience and how teams are evolving.
Today's Guest
Moose Mutlow: Senior trainer and family liaison officer of Yosemite Search & Rescue, Author, Instructor
Learn More at moosemutlow.com
Incident command to field team. Sending in mutual aid.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to SAR Mutual Aid, the podcast where search and rescue teams share lessons, tackle challenges, and find real solutions.
SPEAKER_02:We bring together leaders from SAR teams across the country to discuss solutions to universal problems.
SPEAKER_03:I'm Teal Harvest, Base Medical CEO, a Wilderness Paramedic nurse, and a SAR volunteer in New Mexico.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm Lauren Skinechny, a wilderness EMT and SAR volunteer based in Portland, Oregon. Join us as we cross county lines to find new ways that you can empower and strengthen your team.
SPEAKER_01:Presented by Base Medical.
SPEAKER_03:Hi, Teal. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Lauren. It's it's it's been a while.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we've been off for a few weeks uh with the holiday break and working on a lot of exciting things with Base Medical. Um, while we have the time, is there anything that you want to update folks on?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I feel like there's a lot to look forward to in 2026 as far as Base Medical and some of the courses that we're developing. Towards the end of 2025, we sealed the deal with an organization that offers the famous Red Med course, which uh is offered throughout Guatemala and the UK, but this organization specializes in disaster expedition rescue medicine. And so we're combining forces to bring more disaster curriculum to wilderness search and rescue. So I'm really excited about that. And then, of course, we do plan to publish the special populations course later this year as well, and a few others. So it should be an exciting year.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Yeah, lots of good things coming in 2026. 2025 was an awesome year for base medical, a lot of new courses, a lot of new education centers and instructors. So uh we've been very appreciative to the community of Base Medical for everything that you've helped us accomplish in the last year.
SPEAKER_03:We also can't forget about Wilderness CPR as well. That I am so looking forward to launching, and that should be like within this next month. So that's super exciting.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. Well, we're happy to be back on the podcast today. Uh, and we're back with an interview from um a person who has been doing a lot of really exciting work in search and rescue for many years. Uh, Moose Mutlow is part of Yosemite Search and Rescue or YOSAR, and he's really done a lot of work to kind of um lead the charge on the development of a family liaison officer. Uh, so I spoke to Moose last month uh after I'd taken a course with him earlier this uh earlier last year on family liaison training, identified him as somebody who just had so many good things to say, really interesting experiences, and I'm really excited to share, to share this interview. So let's go ahead and give it a listen.
SPEAKER_01:In SAR, you're expected to deliver professional care, which is why every responder should at least have a wilderness first aid certification. Base Medical offers the only wilderness first aid and first responder courses built for search and rescue. Get your SAR WFA or re-certify your WFR with live instruction online from anywhere and for half the cost. Or become a base medical instructor to deliver training to your team in person. Learn more at base-medical.com.
SPEAKER_02:Hi everyone, I am so excited to be here with Moose Mutlow, calling in from California. Moose is a senior trainer with Yosemite Search and Rescue and a Rescue 3 instructor. Um and Moose, we met uh at the Mountain Rescue Association this spring where I took your workshop on um family liaison officer training, which was super informative. So I'm really excited to have you here to talk about your experience and a little bit about what that role means. So welcome.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks very much, Lauren. I'm glad you enjoyed the class. That was good.
SPEAKER_02:It was great. It was great. Um so I'd first just like to start by hearing a little bit about your background, kind of how you ended up where you are at USemiti Search and Rescue, and just what drew you to search and rescue in general.
SPEAKER_05:I spent decades working as a wilderness guide, as uh working for Outward Bound and other providers around the world. And throughout that time, being a wilderness guide, you're always involved at some point with search and rescue because things happen either because of your awful leadership or being unlucky, or next to you, adjacent to you, another party needs a hand. So, really early on, working in the late district in northwest England, we would help if there was a need from the search and rescue. And that has been has run through my time in different organizations. And then once I started working with in the National Park Service in 2000, it became an easier uh relationship in a lot of ways to sustain because the feds have search and rescue groups, and I just ended up getting the squad and have been with Yosemite Search and Rescue for 25 uh nearly 25 years.
SPEAKER_02:That's amazing. And Yosemite Search and Rescue, definitely one of the kind of most prestigious organizations uh in search and rescue. So, how has your role with them evolved over time?
SPEAKER_05:I started stuffing sleeping bags and just being around the cache and doing the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. And then in a in a in a vertically rich world where a lot of people have really good experience climbing, there isn't the same crossover necessarily into swift water and whitewater paddling. And that's that's my background. And so I got a little bit of a in there and started to instruct and uh work within responses within swift water and body recovery a lot. And then that morphed a little more into more of a senior trainer role and taking on the family liaison program uh and being a national trainer for the park service with that.
SPEAKER_02:Now, yeah, the family liaison officer role, this is something that I I feel like you've kind of been at the forefront of, um, hence the the workshop that you led earlier this spring. Can you first just kind of define what that is? Because it I knew I realized after I took the course when I started telling people about it, it is a novel concept to folks, even who are familiar with search and rescue. So, yeah, let's just start with kind of defining what that role is broadly.
SPEAKER_05:Well, it's been out there a long time. It's it's in in a lot of the instant command graphics, you'll see family liaison is in there. It just tends to be hidden behind stuff. And I like to think about the family liaison officer. The best definition I've heard is you're the instant commander's representative to the family. You're the person who's carrying the command staff, all the information backwards and forwards, helping to shape the conversations and how they happen, choreograph who comes in and out of the room. And ultimately you're you're accountable to the to the instant commander, but you're helping the family with a little bit of translating about what's going on so they feel listened to and supported.
SPEAKER_02:So you mentioned there specifically that the family liaison officer is really working closely with incident command. And that was something when I took the course that surprised me is that, you know, a lot of times maybe coming in or thinking about that role, we're thinking about a family advocate, which is, I think, certainly part of it. But your job is really to work at the service of incident command. Um, can you just talk a little bit more about kind of yeah, how that role falls into incident command and that reporting structure?
SPEAKER_05:Well, that tension between liaison and advocates is really important to understand. An advocate is something where you're representing, you're really lobbying for, and liaison is you're the you're the lubricant, you're the you're the you're helping everything turn, the system turn. And as a family liaison in the ICS, you're making sure that you're giving 100% verifiable information, you're putting the right people in the room, and you're not complicating the response. And by that I mean in this intense, emotional, emotionally charged environment where you're hearing a lot about a family member who's disappeared and you want to help, you don't get drawn into that representative battle because that works against what the instant command is trying to do is focusing on the mission. So you're you're right walking a pretty fine line that you have to keep checking in with your peers and yourself into am I being compassionately objective? The idea that you feel where somebody's coming from, but you're not having that affect your performance and and drift into that advocacy role.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's I think so important generally to working on teams. It's it's such an interesting you know, pursuit that we have in search and rescue because we're, I think, drawn to the work because we care, because we want to help. But there does need to be almost like a a buffer to stay mission focused, to stay oriented. And you know, you almost can't get drawn too much into the emotionality of it sometimes. So I think in general, anyone working in search and rescue, there's there's a really fine balance between those two draws that that caring, that empathy, that emotionality, and the like mission objective and objective focus.
SPEAKER_05:And I I see that I that's where I see people struggling sometimes because ego gets involved. And you want to maintain a hundred percent find record. But that's about you, it's not about the mission. Um or you want to be seen as the person who's fixing something. And that's that's not the role here. That the role is to do the task, not be necessarily and and fulfilled and getting the task done, but it what shouldn't be defining it is your wishes. It's based around what the mission need is and meeting the family where they're at.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a that's a huge lift. Um, I want to hear a little bit specifically, maybe about the how the role has evolved within YOSAR. Was this something that someone else was doing before you were involved, or were you kind of one of the first people to get that off the ground?
SPEAKER_05:It has a long history within law enforcement, whether it was called family liaison or not, where somebody would step up and be that that primary contact for the family. And it it it gradually has been built out, particularly around the fire service has some really interesting work they've done with family liaison. And I think in the last 20 years, what's what's recognized is if you have a really good family liaison in an incident, you give such a good buffer to the incident commander and the people doing the mission that it actually frees them up. And so I think what happened in year 70 specifically is that we formalized the role and formalized the training. We broke it out of CISM Critical Instance Stress Management, which is a totally different skill set, um, and had an independent group of family liaison officers. And as that became more clearly structured, it was easier for the ICs to say, oh, I want one of them on board because they could see what how they were going to have that advantage.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and when you first or when that decision was first made to kind of split that off and formalize that training, what did how did that training process evolve from that point? What was like the first step to kind of get those folks equipped for that role?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I would like to say it was a painless experience, but it wasn't. CISM was not particularly happy about it. I think it's because in part for a long time, CISM Family Liaison was part of a five-day training. And uh the way we broke it out was to move from what I would call a more didactic, a more teacher at the front telling you what to do, to more of an experiential piece, as we did in our training, where you're dropping nuggets in and out, you're practicing a little bit, uh, and actually role-playing it. Um so I think that's the biggest difference that I I saw happen. And we don't try to cover everything in a training because a lot of what we're trying to do in training is give people the skeleton that they can hang their experiences on. And it I always say I I like to think 80% of being a good family liaison officer you already have. You've got the ability to communicate, you've got the ability to empathize and be compassionate, you've got the ability to understand, you understand the ICS system, you understand SAROPS. And all we're doing with the training is saying, here's some handy tools, here's a progression, here's some things I've learned not to do. Uh so intuitively, there are some skills. Most most people have the skills because it's about being human and and and in that moment saying, Oh, I haven't got the answers, but I can sit and hold somebody's hands. I I think for a long time, family liaison was a deferred position, and it maybe went to the spouse of somebody who's on the squad or somebody who's seen as as sort of a softer person. And actually, the best family liaison officers are the people who have really good understanding of the mechanics of how a search and rescue in an agency or wherever work. You need to have that hardened skill base. And we used to say hard and soft skills. I think it's for me, it's better for me. I see it as interpersonal skills, it's a communication job primarily. The ability to listen to collect yourself, and if you can't answer, admit that and find somebody who maybe can.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think there's been uh a growing um, yeah, I think change in how we we just like you said, right? We used to kind of separate hard and soft skills and there's a whole set of values and and judgments that go into what those are and who is most capable and what. And I think at least here in here in the Pacific Northwest, there's certainly been a push to get get away from that to really start to evaluate some of these things that we considered soft skills on a more I don't know, an analytical basis, or to like to to really put some parameters around it in terms of training. Um so yeah, I don't know, that's interesting. Um in terms of transitioning the the role out of um critical incident stress response. Um, was that was there like a provoking incident that that triggered that move, or what was the kind of impetus behind identifying a need for specific personnel for this this job?
SPEAKER_05:Uh I think it's it's it's turf. It's a turf war. So I I think one of the things I've I've see my experience has been the way in which family liaison programs and CICM and psychological first aid, they all get corrupted, is when somebody owns it. Someone says, This is my program, these are my people, and and it becomes proprietary. And and that that stifles development, education, I think allowing people a little bit more freedom to be who they are and and and release those strengths. And so for us, I would say there was a control piece that we needed to address, and then by doing that, we freed it up so that instead of having one or two people responding, we have a dozen people trained. And I don't need to go to every incident. This year I've done two or three advising, and maybe one that I've responded to. That's a lot more sustainable than 12. Definitely. And so sharing the space, and and I think that's another thing within Teams, is when somebody becomes the technician or the person who does all the rigging. That's a weakness, that's not a strength. That that person should become the primary trainer or be pushing to help create that next line. And so for me, I think law what drives me is sustainability, and sustainability is is not just me. I'm gonna be 61 next year. I'm still teaching swift water rescue, but I don't teach it in the same way I taught when I was 40. And so now I have a really talented uh colleague in the water, Zach, who is a surf rescue um experience. He's got a massive save record. He does all these big demos, the big swims. You stand back and let that person do it. And I I think that's one of the other things I've learned through Evolving the Family Liaison program, is the best programs are where you might have a lead role, but there are many voices in the room giving perspective, angle, strength, sweetness, evolving the program. We we I always tell I always I always try to get family liaison people to recognize you don't own an incident.
SPEAKER_02:And it's it's a great point comparing it to somebody, right, like a rope technician, right? If they get called out on, you know, five missions in a week, they're gonna be exhausted, right? That's not sustainable, like you said. I think it's similar for family liaison. It's it's mentally and emotionally exhausting to do that role. And so building in kind of more folks, that redundancy, kind of, I imagine will help with that burnout and overall probably keep people around for a longer time in that role.
SPEAKER_05:I I think there's this sort of wider thing in such a rescue. I encourage people to do as well, is if you know how to do your job really well, articulate your intuition, the things that you do without really thinking. Find somebody to mentor. There's plenty of people out there who want to be mentored. Put them in the position of being in charge and be there as a coach to help them. And I I think coaching is one of those words that you you is a little bit fraught nowadays because you have life coaches at 22 and you're like, Well, what have you done? You might have done something amazing, but I'm not sure about that. Active coaching comes from really deep experience base and sharing that in a digestible form, and every squad can benefit from that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's tricky too, to like articulate the things that you don't really think about. And I think that's maybe the holdup that some people have when it comes to training or coaching or making, you know, best practice documents and that kind of stuff. Is it is it's hard. It's hard to parse out those things, those things in your intuition that you naturally do. But um ultimately that's for the betterment and sustainability of the team. Um, how did you identify the individuals that would be trained in this role?
SPEAKER_05:Uh, we put out an open call if anybody's interested, and we encourage Ellie and Laura uh the IC to come along and participate with that and they're saying getting on the squad. And then they pretty much self-sort. You you're in an eight-hour workshop where you see people struggling or being like, I don't I don't think I can do this. And so there's, I think for probably 80% of the time it's self-sorts, and the other 20%, there might be a side conversation that maybe this I'm really excited about you wanting to be part of this. Uh, this is something that I think you might need to work on. Uh, and it and it can be as simple as a lot if I was actually to boil it down to what the biggest thing they need to work on, it's less rigid and less controlling. Like you've got a family that's that's on a train track that's kind of a bit all over the place, but they are barreling along on it. And if you're like, no, no, I want you to go over here, and you're you're determined to get them over here over to this other point, they've already figured out their course. You you can you can chibi it a little bit, move them, you nudge them over, but it it's a it's a long process that's mutual. And if it needs to be done by when in a specific way, this is not the position for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's interesting that I think one of the the most difficult uh traits of somebody who could be in this role and in maybe in SR in general is is comfort with discomfort. Comfort with not knowing. And that's certainly something that we experience in SAR quite a bit. I mean, unresolved missions. It's not uncommon for us to, you know, walk away and maybe just not get answers that we want. But I feel like in the Family Liaison officer role, it's multiplied times a million because you're there, you're on the front line. And like you said, you really have no control over how somebody responds to such a high stress incident to grief. Um, and it's not your job to control it, like you said. I think that's incredibly important.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you've got to find you've got to find the place where I to me what families want to, a lot of families want to hear really experience is be heard. You know, they're going through this awful thing and they're saying some terrible things. And and me sitting there going, You don't you don't have to apologize to me. Like, I will put up with a lot. I'm not gonna put up with trans homophobia, racism. I'm gonna I'm gonna say something at this point and go, hang on a minute. All right, let's let's have a chat about some road rules here. But for the most part, they get to say stuff, and you're like, it's okay. You've had this terrible, all this sort of framework that you've been operating with your life has just fallen us asunder, and now we need to build this fresh foundation. And so saying being prepared to listen to someone and have them incrementally put these little building blocks of functionality back together, uh that that's again one of the key parts of the role.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I wanna I wanna kind of dive into that a little bit more. Um, what would like a day to a day look like when you're on an incident as a family liaison officer? What are what are kind of like the general roles and responsibilities broadly? And then I do want to hear more about kind of you know how you can train and anticipate those kinds of things, but just base level, what does this role do?
SPEAKER_05:I'll I'll get a call out so the phone will go and it and they'll go, hey, we need someone. And we'll look down the list and and and we'll hear the I start to hear the complexity about what's going on. I might make a decision about seniority and whether I'm gonna bring Kate in or not, or is it Claudine? Who's who's who's am I gonna drive? And then we get our assembly point and you zip out there and you hit the ground running. You might be on the phone or the radio, getting a bit more information, and then you're gonna go out and you're gonna do your contact with the family, and that might be chaperoned by the instant commander or or or the investigator or who's sort of talking about what happens with the op. And that first contact, you're building the relationship, and it's it's based on truth. So a lot of it is saying who I am, why I'm here. My name's Moose Muttlow. I'm so sorry we're meeting under these circumstances. I'm here as your family liaison officer. Uh, we know right now we're doing a search for Kenny, there's a lot going on. You've probably got a lot of questions. So I'm gonna give you an opportunity to ask questions right now. I've got I've got some facts as well that I can share, but we can we can decide which way you want to go. Do you want to go to questions or do you want me to report out? And instantly you're giving them a binary choice of oh, I've got control to ask questions, or let me hear some information. And that's all about building those fundamental stabilizing blocks on this new restructured world. And then it then it's pretty much taking good notes and starting to choreograph meetings and being available phone or face-to-face to take them through this journey while everything's under your jurisdiction. And that could be all the way through reuniting. Um, I had I've had phone calls where we've been out and we've I've assumed the worst, to tell you the truth in my heart. I'm like, they're not going to survive. And then you find out that they're alive, and you do that contact, and then you hear this explosion of euphoria, and they can't continue the phone call, and the last thing you say to them is, I'll call you back in 15 minutes, and they're they're sort of up. Or it might be that we're doing an a notification that's formalized and we're moving right into transport of the body and figuring out under whose jurisdiction it's going to be. So it's it's a roller coaster that you you have control over. You sometimes it's uphill and it's going real slow, and you're organizing and getting all the all the pieces in position, and you get to the top, and then you give them the news and it careens down. And there will be a point it stops, and you sort of bring it back in. But it's it can be a little over the all over the map. And then if you have this idea that it's an unresolved death, we haven't figured out what's happened, and you move into this ambiguous loss where it's unresolved and who knows when it might be, that's a much longer type of assignment. Uh, and that typically passes to an investigator rather than having a family liaison all the way through. The only ones that complicate it are death in the line of duty, and you get you get put on those and you have a very long assignment. That's almost a lifetime assignment at that point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was surprising um to me personally when I took the course was just the the boundary um when the mission is done. And I think you just did a really good job during the course emphasizing the importance of that, right? Like the whoever is working the mission as the family liaison officer, you can't emotionally take on a lifetime of checking on somebody. Um so can you talk a little bit more about how like a mission might close and how you handle that, potentially setting that boundary of, you know, I've done my role, we're gonna say goodbye. Um, and how people respond to that and how you respond to that.
SPEAKER_05:I'm a compassionate administrator. That's that's the way I I look at myself. And so there's a beginning and an end to that assignment. And I'll talk to families when we're two or three days in, I'll talk to the fact that I'll be rotated off and reassigned, is the phrase I use, and I'll ready them for this progression. And it might be they go to another family liaison officer and we'll do the introductions and we tag out, and I might come in if it's with a certain type of uh mission, but it probably moves up to an investigator in the park, and we'll talk about this is the last conversation we're gonna have, and we're not monitoring this phone number anymore, and this is your primary contact, and I'm I'm just so sorry for your loss. Um and and then you're sort of stepping aside. And I I've done over a hundred assignments, I think. Uh, probably 50 is a lead, and another 50 where I've been second or sort of a strong safety. And the idea that you would maintain a hundred relationships is is dangerously unfeasible. And I think it also clouds the role because I I believe you drift into a position where you've got this relationship that's bound by tragedy for the most part, and every day you turn up, you're reminding the family of that of that's what was the inception of this friendship. And I I I see that the places I've seen people struggle has been letting go. Because they've had this, you've had this intense experience on both sides, and you have to be able to let go and out of the for the other people to be able to progress, to allow them to grieve, to allow them to move to functionality.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's I just that that was definitely surprising as potentially one of the trickiest parts of the role, but where that clarity at the beginning and those expectations can help on both sides with that. So, like you said, from the start, kind of letting them know what to expect, letting them know how it might close out, potentially reminding along the way, so that when it is time to say goodbye, everyone knows that it's coming, it's not a shock. Um, so yeah, I think that that like expectations are important.
SPEAKER_05:These are intense losses. I've worked a number of incidents where people have chosen to end their lives. And there is typically a lot of confusion from family members about oh, what will what put them in this position? And I'm not giving them answers. I might be doing a little bit of a guided conversation. So for somebody who's ended their life, and they say, Well, you know, why they do it, I I'll say, Well, let's go with what we know. And so for a for a specific incident, I was able to say your sibling was an incredible planner, and they were like, Yeah, they were. And I said, and they're meticulous because we can see everything on investigation that took them from their home to the park. And and so this is this upon investigation was a very conscious act, it was a very deliberate act, and so we know those for facts, and I think in the in a world of confusion, you're searching for something to hold on to, even these ancillary facts that still don't answer the question about why are helpful to someone because they're solid, concrete, and provable.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that kind of what we said before about being okay in this unknown space, obviously for the family, that's a challenge with with so many questions, and again, potentially an unresolved search. Do you have anything that that that you do or that you rely on to help yourself when you're in those situations of ambiguity? Um, you know, you mentioned kind of focusing on what you do know, but how do you manage that?
SPEAKER_05:I don't fill space. Silence is really important. So in that moment, it's just incredible discomfort because you people don't know what to say to each other because of the monumental nature of what's happened. I don't say, Hey, did you see the game last night? And make it easier. We allow silence to happen because that's where stuff's integrating, that's where processing's happened. And if someone says, I really don't know what to do, I might have a piece of paper and some pens, and they say, Well, I've got some stuff to write if you want to write, and I'll just sit there undistracted, and I'm not looking at my phone, and I'll just be present, I'll be a witness. And I think that things that help is you're modeling, oh, this is uncomfortable, this isn't fixable right now. And so that's one trick. I think to be not judgmental around how people grieve or they react, or what what decisions this person made put themselves in this other. We had we had a situation where somebody disappeared who had a criminal background that was disturbing, and the family was still hurt by the loss of this person, they they may have had this really troubling history, but they were still somebody's son. And I yeah, judgment's really important to put on the back burner or get rid of and realize that you can't you can't do everything right. Like it's it's it's sort of like oh I should maybe I shouldn't have said that, and you sort of backtrack and you apologize, and you you haven't got all the answers and you can't make the pain go away. But what you can be is present and be human, and that's the biggest thing is to be human in the moment in a disconnected society where particularly in Western culture death is so uncomfortable to talk about because we find we go, well, let's talk about it. Actually, let's just be quiet about it and just be in the same space, and it's lonely, and I think that's what I always remind myself is having a couple more minutes there is important. Notification is a really good example of that, where typically you'd notify and you try and get out of there pretty quick because it's dire, and actually sitting there for a couple of uncomfortable minutes is really important before you excuse yourself because they might they might be a spark of a question two minutes, three minutes later. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I I like that almost shifting of the goal, right? So sometimes we think about, or if you think about a search, if you're on a search, multi-operation, tons of folks involved. If you go into that with your goal being, I'm going to find this person, you're just going to be set up for disappointment a lot, right? Whereas if you go in and say, I'm going to do my assignment to the best of my ability, that's all you have control over. So, same going into these conversations with people, you're the outcome can't be I'm going to make them feel better, I'm going to fix it. The outcome has to be, right? I'm going to be compassionate. I'm going to hold space. I'm going to answer the questions that they have. I feel like those smaller kind of um the goals that you actually have control over are probably going to set you up for success a lot more than trying to control someone else's response.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. And I again, I'm just going to re- restate being human. It's, it's uh, it's curious what people pick up on when you walk into a room when your family liaison office. So one of the stories I shared in the training was somebody said they'd watched me walk towards them, and I'd seen them, and I was like just walking towards them. And they said, From the way that you walked, I knew you were going to be able to help us. And so I must have a really officious little walk at that time. And these these things that come up, or I tend to dress down. I'm I'm in I'm somewhat of a dirt bag. And so I'll arrive and I'm not wearing all the neon, and I'm wearing my Hawaiian shirt and maybe a set of shorts and flip-flops. And I've sort of I've said I have rushed here to be with you, and I that's why I'm dressed like this. And what's becomes important is the speed at which I've arrived on scene. So the being genuine in an in a world of fakery and uh this sheen of out of what people's lives are like is really important.
SPEAKER_02:Have you ever found that a family is is kind of resonates more with someone else on the team or resonates more with you or connects more with you? And how do you manage that from a personnel perspective? I can imagine that might be difficult not to take personally if someone just has a better connection with somebody else.
SPEAKER_05:Gotta kind of grow up. They it's it's a serving the family. And if the if if it's a gender or it's a cultural or it's a uh identity, whatever that piece is to help the family in that moment, we work really hard to meet them. So there's if if somebody has lost a child, I'm not a parent, and so I don't have the intimacy of that parental experience. I have nieces and nephews, and uh, I like kids, and you know, I've been around families and stuff, but I'm I'm not a parent, then sometimes it's good to have a family, uh somebody who's sort of family in there who's like, oh, that resonates, you know. I'm not saying I know it, but it resonates. Or if you've got somebody who uh on a cultural level had looks at gender roles and they're very male-centric, if that's the best way to concentrate, that is not the time to make the political statement. So we work with them on that. And at the same time, I've had situations where we've we've flipped that, where we've used gender really carefully to message and open a doorway, maybe not to the primary contact who's male, but to talk to the mother. And so a female in that role is really important. So you just work with it. But it ultimately, if it doesn't work for the family, you don't get to say, well, I need to stay on this because I'm doing my best. It's you need to step aside, let go. And it's it's that ego again. It's it's ego that says I have to be right. This this role is not to be right. This role is to find the way to communicate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And kind of a somewhat related, how do you navigate if you're getting conflicting uh needs and requests from the family and from incident command, which I imagine probably happens quit pretty often. Um, how do you manage those conflicting requests? And yeah, ultimately, how do you kind of make sure everyone feels at least heard?
SPEAKER_05:So you're not neutral, you you work for the incident commander. So you're representing the instant commander. So it's if there's a if there's a struggle, you might be articulating stuff, but you definitely have a bit of bias. You're on the instant response side. And it a lot of times it's it's simply giving timely, clear, honest information. So if somebody says, if you're doing a recovery and they're saying, Well, why can't you turn the waterfall off? We we have to have somebody senior in the part to come in with the big hat and explain that this this isn't Disney World, this hasn't got a switch. And sometimes hierarchy helps to sort of show, oh, there's a junior person I'm working with, but now the boss is here, I'm gonna listen to the boss. Uh, and sometimes it's on you can't resolve it. Sometimes it's it's gonna always be uh there's gonna be conflict. And that's often when you'll hear people say on media, I'm not nobody's telling me what's going on. That's a sign that there's a breakdown in communication, or we simply can't provide what they believe they need. And sometimes that is it, that's based on a realistic need, like let's why aren't we flying drones? And they don't really care about bighorn sheep because they're trying to find their friend. Um and or it might be that they simply don't understand that throwing a bunch of resources at this two weeks after a disappearance is not going to find that person necessarily alive in this environment. So it's we just have to have to have compassion in that moment, and you can you can be a bit upset offline, but it can't dominate your day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I imagine that the decision to call off a search is probably one of the toughest ones to navigate.
SPEAKER_05:Well, and and understanding what that means, we'll shift to limited continuous, which they'll say, well, hang on, it's just words. You know, we'll we're right now we have found no new clues, we have no indications about when or where to look. And so we're hoping that by posting stuff up and doing the appeal online, that someone will provide some video or some photographs or a recollection that will help redirect us efficiently to that point to really search. And right now we haven't got that. But with the rise of freelancers, particularly drone freelancers, has changed this this world. And if you can work through the jurisdictions to get a drone team up in the air and mapping, and particularly with development of some of this AI stuff, that's going to make a lot of difference on the these unresolved searches. I think that we'll see a higher percentage, maybe answer not all of them, but and it's figuring out how you work with those. And actually, in my the new edition of my of my the second edition of my book, When Accidents Happen, I talk about the fact that outside contractors who are brought in, who are qualified and have good references, uh, can be a real boon to a search, and that that there's the charlatans and the quick buckers and the psychics that are out there that just after abusing a family, we need to sift them out. But not all contractors are adversarial.
SPEAKER_04:They they they they can be very helpful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we um had a had a search recently out here where we were having a lot of those conversations. There were you know a lot of emergent searchers and it was very uh a lot of conversation on social media, a lot of press coverage, a lot of teams that came out on their own, and it's hard to parse out, I think, who's who's gonna be helpful and who's gonna be um you know put potentially interfere with the search. I'm curious how you uh how this role often works with like the a public information, public information officer, because I imagine there's maybe information that you want to share with the family, but also there are certain in pieces of information that need to be withheld from the media or the public. Is there ever any kind of conflict with how information is released and how do you how do you navigate that?
SPEAKER_05:Uh if the family want to talk to outside media, I will bring the public affairs, public information officer in and I'll I'll give them a little workshop and have that person who's connected in all the local markets, okay, this is how it's probably going to shake out. And these are the reputable groups, and these are the groups that might go in a different direction. Um I anything I share with the family, I am ready for it to be out in public. The only cautionary bit I say is if you start posting this on social media, as much as you'll get support, you'll have naysayers. As much as you'll have love, you'll have hate. And so you need to think about how you're gonna deal with that. But again, it's about control. And if it's a full-on investigation because of criminality, in truth, I probably have worked really hard with the investigator to not be privy to that experience that that information. Like the investigators I work with, they'll say, Hey, we've got something going on here. I want to go and talk to the family, and then I choreograph that in and they get the message, but I'm not privy to that. And on that same level of honesty, I will not look at photographs of incidents that have been shot on scene. When we're doing the command briefing, I will leave the room and they can look at them all they want so that when the family save you've seen the images, I'll be like, no, it's 100% truthful. Uh because anything that I want to be in a position where I'm unchallenged, I have a challenged integrity.
SPEAKER_02:That's I imagine that's a tough, tough boundary, but I can see yeah how important that is. Um I want to shift a little to uh kind of other teams that are interested in potentially expanding this role or implementing some sort of program similar to this. Um, I guess first of all, I I don't know how much you've obviously you've done a lot of trainings. Are you finding that this is something that's common on volunteer teams or more more common with uh teams that are working closely with law enforcement? Do a lot of people have family liaison officers?
SPEAKER_05:No. I I think there's a little bit of hamstring from jurisdictionally from local law enforcement wanting to keep the integrity of the investigation together and saying, hey, if you're not commissioned, you're not gonna be in the room. And and then they bring an investigative family liaison officer bias into it. Um so it it isn't out there as much as it could be. And and I think that once jurisdictions see, oh, this is actually quite helpful. Even if it isn't privy to the investigation, it's like, oh, we can corral the family in a way which they feel supported, they're getting food, water, shelter, and they're in a known zone and we're feeding information into it. It's it's about getting commanders to understand, hey, this can help your deputies, your officers. And so it's you need an advocate. And I what I find interesting is the change in the park service is as soon as you've got a leader who goes, Oh, I get it, you you they create a very healthy ecosystem of their own family liaison officers. And and itself replicates it's sort of i i a really good system means somebody leaves and it stays. So there could be more of it, and a lot of it is awareness. And the way I've written my book is to try and help somebody who's got no training, go, oh, this is how I do it. And it it it it isn't rocket science. It really isn't. The the complication and scary piece is dealing with other people's emotions. And we can do that because we're people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we have we have that ability as much as we maybe push it down. Um yeah, I'd like to just uh give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your book. Um, and you mentioned there's a new edition.
SPEAKER_05:I so I spent the last year just sifting through all the feedback I've had. I've added 50 pages, I think, to the book. Uh When Accidents Happen, Managing Crisis Communication as a Family Liaison Officer. Uh it's available on Amazon uh through their on their uh online publishing uh platform. Uh and it's an adjunct to my teaching courses. So it's the text I use when I teach, and I have an online class as well that's priced so that the average person can get it and be like, oh, okay, this is useful. Uh and it runs through from very early on what's the role, things to think about, how do I do my first interaction, what do I script? Oh, this had a bit of a curveball here because contractors were in, what should I think about? And it tries to teach a way of being a family liaison officer, not the way. Again, coming back to that idea that there's more than one way to do it. Uh, and this should be just a helpful guide that you either have you there's digital versions, so you can have it on your phone if you needed to. Uh and it's written up with the idea that someone will line strike items and scribble their own stuff in there. There's plenty of room uh on the text.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. And what advice would you have for someone who, you know, maybe is on a team and is compelled by this role, sees the need for it, feels that they have a skill set or or have a group of people that do have a skill set. How can folks advocate for the creation of this role?
SPEAKER_05:I think sit down with leadership and have them set just simply say, What do you know about the family liaison role? And I'm happy to talk to any search and rescue unit for half an hour just as a gratis sort of, hey, let me tell you about the role, and this is what I think happens out there, and be an advocate at that time for people exploring it. And it won't fit for everybody, but most teams will benefit from this, even if it's the idea of patient care and walking out from a trailhead with the family member looking at their badly injured partner, and regarding that you can say psychological first aid and those pieces, which are really again it's it's interchangeable in a lot of ways. Having a family liaison officer set in there where you're not doing damage and setting up for the trailhead, that's where I see search and rescue really benefiting. And years ago, I was uh I I was working in Wales at one of the busy out uh outward bound schools, Mountain Rescue, and I turned up, and I'll tell you what, that team could really drive a Land Rover fast and do the knots. But boy, were they terrible at patient care. And the idea that at that moment I shifted from this sort of carrier to be like, oh, I'm gonna look after the patient and I'm gonna look after the associated people, and it kind of blew people's minds that oh, there's this second circle of affected people. So a lot of it is just awareness.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that's uh it just brings up a great point too, right? Even if it's not an establishment of the formal role, or if that's gonna take a little bit longer and you know, there's other agencies that have to be involved, just having folks that are trained in trained in how to be human. Sounds silly, but who are trained in these skills, right? Because it does take intentionality, it does take an understanding and like you know, being exposed to ways that people might might behave and respond in these situations. I think that that alone, that training and understanding can go a long way, even for folks that are maybe not going to be in like an official designated officer role.
SPEAKER_05:And it comes into that point of once you have that role, the other people in the team recognize it as well and they work with you. So they aren't coming in over the top of you, they're using you as that communication conduit and they're oh, you've got some information I'm gonna talk to this person about, or they want to go and we had an incident where I love this one, it's that we had somebody disappear and the family wanted to be involved, and we did a bit of negotiation, and we gave them an area off the side of the search area that was deemed a little bit safer, and they got a guide in to help them. And of course, they found the disappeared person that their grandmother, and we did a helicopter uh extraction, and I was chatting with the with the son, and I said, What do you need? And and he said, I would love to be there when they do a transfer. So we raced up and got them to the uh hella hella base, and we were doing the transfer between the two out in Awani Meadow, and we I knew everybody so I could talk to the right people, and he got to walk out there and hold a hand as she got loaded onto the other onto the medical helicopter. And so it's I think I tell that story because you if you understand the power of it and you understand how it can interface, and you have a team that recognizes what that role is, it raises your performance immeasurably. And I would use immeasurably because if you have a family then saying we were treated with respect and people listen to us, those are all fundamental blocks in in people having a positive experience out of horror. And if we look at it purely from a litigation background, to be on the stand and being accused of something that you've done wrong, and they say, But actually, we've got treated with respect and kindness throughout it, that changes the conversation. So I I would encourage people to get family liaisons involved in all search and rescue sort of operations. You don't have to have one at every op, but in the sort of general uh way that you do stuff, because uh it it it has this long-term positive.
SPEAKER_02:Well, um I'd love for folks to know where to find you uh for more information. So is there are you online?
SPEAKER_05:I am online, ww.moose mutlow.com. That's my website that links into all the books, trainings, resources. I'm also on Instagram at MooseMutlow. I'm at uh Family Liaison Training on Facebook, but I'm less active on that one. But if you look online on that www.moosemutlow.com, that'll give you all the links and ideas. And I'm always there as a resource. I think any search and rescue team that says I have a question, I am happy to get an email. Contact information is on my website and and chat through that.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Well, I'll and I'll put those in the show notes. Um, yeah, I'm just I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing. I think uh, you know, when I got involved with search and rescue, um, I don't know, I'm a I'm like a person that likes people skills and people interaction. And so, you know, there can certainly be an attitude of just like hi tactical and it almost feels impersonal some sometimes. And to to just be able to see and experience this other side of it of just supporting humans, really trying to help people through a difficult time in their lives, um, seeing the intentionality around that and just the the awareness that you're bringing to it is really meaningful. Um and I, like I said, I learned so much from the the workshop that we did. I definitely encourage folks to take that if they can. Um, and it's something that we started implementing on our team. Um I did have to explain to my team kind of what the roles and responsibilities would be. So it is new to a lot of people, um, but I do uh I do highly encourage people to to look into establishing this role. And and Moose is a great place to start. So thanks so much for being here. Thanks for sharing everything, and I look forward to learning more from you soon.
SPEAKER_05:Thanks for the chance to chat. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:In search and rescue, you're not just a volunteer, you're a professional. Your team and your community expect you to deliver. That means being ready for more than patient care. You need skills in navigation, communication, helicopter safety, and incident command. With Base Medical, you can train like a pro. Our individual subscription gives you unlimited access to over 25 search and rescue courses for just$12.50 a month. Or choose our team subscription to standardize training across your entire team. Stay sharp, stay ready, learn more at base-medical.com.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that was extremely informative, and I'm very thankful that there is a program that exists like this because I do think it's deeply needed in the community. For me, I thought it was critical to my understanding that yes, there is a designation with the family liaison role. That is an entirely different skill set than what is needed for debriefing after a critical incident. And it makes a lot of sense because you're not working with fellow SAR responders and other agencies, you're working with the lay community, with family members, with people that are very emotionally like going through a lot. And so I do think this is really important.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And something that that surprised me is just the goal or the ultimate, you know, purpose of the role is to relay information. And that helps, I think, alleviate a lot of the pressure that people might feel going into this role that you, you know, have to be a therapist or you have to be a social worker. It's really not what it is. It's about making sure that the family understands what's going on, that you have a layer of protection between the family and the people that have to be kind of like in the field and making those decisions. And so it's, you know, the communication skills that are needed for it are really um you have to really be have a lot of nuance in how you're communicating and know what information is important to relay and and all of that. So it is a much different skill set in a really specific skill set.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I like what you mentioned about that layer of protection between the incident management team, the SAR team, the mission, and the family, because we've had issues come up over and over again where maybe family they want to be right there with incident-based, they want to know what's going on, they hear something over the radio and they misinterpret it, and then they completely freak out, and we have to calm them down. Or I remember there was a mission that there was a missing child, and afterwards we found out the child had drowned, and we were searching for this child, and the pain and the panic of the mother, I was very thankful that I did not have to interact with her because I just don't know what I would have would have done, what I could have said to her, what would have been the right thing. And so it brings me relief to know that wait, you mean there could be someone on our team that is trained to do this and can better handle this than me. Uh that's that's fantastic. And I think that brings relief to other team members as well.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And I think that training point is really important, that this isn't just somebody who happens to be nice at talking to people, right? That there are firm skills that they can learn and trainings that they can go through to develop those skills and practice those skills.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and you know, Moose pointed out something that I thought was that a lot of teams fall into this trap where you may have one or two certain team members that are highly skilled in one particular area. And while that does add to the team's overall pros and cons, ultimately it is a weakness if you're relying on that one person or those on the only those two people to bring that service to your team. Um, so yeah, I do think that having a group of individuals that are trained in this, especially if you're going to need it for mission after mission after mission, having one person that has to emotionally take on that weight, mission after mission. I I don't think that would be wise. I don't think that would be healthy for anyone. Um so so yeah, this definitely has to be more of a maybe a committee or a group of people on the team that that train and commit to this.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah, and I I I really like the idea of teams nominating a few people who can be trained up in this and who can carry that load together.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, and speaking of, okay, let's say you are interested in training and providing this service to to your team and to your community. Well, thankfully, it is now much more accessible because Moose Muttlow is actually including his family liaison program on our website, so on the base medical website, and it will be um something you can purchase separately from the search and rescue subscription. So you could have access to all 25 plus courses that we have, or you could just have access to the family liaison program. It's totally up to you, but at least now teams can move forward.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Yeah, I'm really excited that we're partnering up on that. So if folks are interested in taking that course, you can visit base-medical.com, keep an eye on our social media and email newsletters for when that course will be available, and you can also follow Moose Muttlow online. If you have any questions about any of that, you can also shoot us an email at hello at base-medical.com and we can point you in the right direction.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much, Lauren. I'm looking forward to the next episode.
SPEAKER_02:SAR MutualAid is produced by Lawrence Genechny and Teal Harvin and presented by Base Medical. For more information, visit Base-Medical.com.