Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Okay.

Well, good morning.

Uh the light came on, but no introduction as far as that's time.

Oh, yeah, no video.

Video.

See?

I'm caught off guard.

Hey, good morning, Daryl Watson.

Um honor to serve all the fine district nine and also to be the chair of the health and safety committee.

I want to thank you all for being here today.

Um we have a light agenda, and we have a guest at a table with us.

And so why don't we begin first with introductions around the table, and we'll start on our right, and we'll go through the room and then we'll go back to the briefing.

That's here, right?

Uh Kevin Flynn, Southwest Members District Two.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, District Five.

So to clause North Pool.

Uh Sarah Perity, one of your city council members at large.

Sorry, I'm walking into what's happening.

A very formal meeting.

Sorry.

Um hi everyone, Serena Gonzalez.

Your other council member at large.

Well, we're so happy to have uh Santa at a table with us.

And I didn't state the date.

Today is the December 17th Health and Safety Committee, just so we have the timestamp.

I know Santa has to get out there and meet some of the other good little boys and girls uh throughout uh the community.

So, Santa, thank you so much for being with us.

Um we have one briefing from the Denver Fire Department, wellness and resilience program.

So I'll turn it over to Deputy Chief uh Kathleen uh Wernerberg.

I always destroy your name from DFD for your presentation.

And if you don't mind introducing yourself and your team, that'll be great.

I'll turn the floor over to you.

Absolutely.

Um good morning to everyone.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Deputy Chief Kathleen Friedenberg with the Denver Fire Department.

And with me, I brought, I'll let you guys introduce yourselves and your position.

Great to see everybody, Desmond Fulton, Chief Denver Fly.

And I'm technician Michael Haplan, the resilience coordinator at the fire.

So thank you so much.

I wanted to make sure we have a council member on on virtual.

I'm getting a notice that we may have some council members that are virtual.

Are there any council members on Tzu on Zoom?

Uh yes.

Hello, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Thank you so much for joining.

The floor is here.

So again, thank you very much for having us to have an opportunity to speak with you about our wellness program.

Um it's wellness and resilience now.

I need to make sure I'm giving it the full, you know, the full name, the full importance.

And uh, with us here together, I think between the three of us, we can answer any question, and please feel free to add in if I'm missing something, okay.

Um I want to start with the obvious, which is our mission, our vision and value statement.

I'm not gonna read through the whole thing.

I just want you to get the overarching meaning behind all three of these.

Um the primary meeting of the entirety is is that we are dedicated to efficiency and um competently and compassionately serving the Denver community.

But with that, also within this is the context that in order to do that in a capable way, we have to care for each other and make sure that we are coming to the public in the most physically and mentally strong way so that we can help them with whatever their emergency is.

Um, so having the context on both ends, it's it's internal and external.

Um, just to let you know, kind of where the wellness and resilience program sits within our department.

It was initially under safety and training.

Um, and then when uh when we all came into office and shortly after, it was concluded it's really important to us that wellness stay in the forefront of what our what is important to us, so we ranked it as such.

So right now it sits underneath my office, the deputy chief of the department.

Um so there's more direct oversight from me, but then also from the chief, because I know he's extremely passionate about this topic, and um that way we we know what's happening real time and we're engaged in it.

Um so I know that uh we talked about in 2025 and 2026 with you all about the importance of the wellness and resilience program, and I know that we spoke to you specifically in our 2026 budget presentation, Chief Fulton presented, um making sure that you knew that we wanted to keep wellness in the forefront.

I'm gonna talk a little bit further on about our 2026 goals so that you know more specifically and in a little bit more detail than what we presented in the budget presentation.

I am aware that you guys already received a presentation from the Department of Safety regarding the overarching wellness program, and that you received some information about the Denver Fire Department wellness program.

So I'm not going to be redundant today, I'll refer to it, but I'm not going to make you look at more charts that you've already seen.

Okay.

I've served as a police officer, I've served as a firefighter, I've gone through both academies, and I understand the context in which we as first responders go to emergencies.

There are clear similarities in the way that we are going to someone's emergency and in essence experiencing a traumatic event from a more remote position, but are still in some ways in the position of having to wipe off the residue of seeing a traumatic event.

And so those are very similar.

But I also know from experience and just all of us who've been on scenes, what we do as first responders on scenes are different.

So what a police officer does when they go through the academy or when they're on scene, they are approaching a critical incident from their perspective.

What is my job here?

How do I problem solve from from my purview?

And fire department has the same thing.

The way we're responding on emergencies is different.

We have some, you know, of course, people are upset, there's you know a lot to see, things you're gonna have to work through in your mind, but also when you get there, the sheer level of physicality of being a firefighter is different.

Um, the way you problem solve is very different.

And so I'm hopeful that we'll keep that perspective as we talk through.

Because I know you spoke, we spoke overarchingly about the Department of Safety and how important wellness is.

I want you to be just aware in the back of your mind that we're also looking from the perspective of a firefighter's response and how how we care for that.

Um also, I know Chief Fulton said it before, and I know you guys know it.

Um, when you look at uh the career, the occupation of firefighter, you know it's the occupation in which you will have the highest number of injuries and and resulting, you know, ancillary outcomes from that.

So we look at this from the total wellness perspective in terms of our little group, and I guess I would I don't have a great analogy, but I'm gonna I'm gonna give the only analogy I can think of.

We've kind of built like a like a stiletto level program with a shoelace budget, and uh and we're very proud of it.

We're very proud of it.

Um we have a small group who functions in their uh independent discipline, but then they function collaboratively to create a total wellness, which has worked very well.

It creates great partnerships with outside entities, and we intend to continue to build on that.

Um I want to give some clear descriptions so that you guys know it's a small group, but the stuff they do, it's a lot of hats.

So we have one lieutenant, currently it's Jerry Bixby.

He's running the wellness coordinator position.

So in his position, he does the overall day-to-day running of the program, the overarching look at it.

He runs all of the recruit fitness programming, and we'll talk about that a little bit more, because that's very important to uh academy to end of career duration of a person's uh overall wellness, and then um uh incumbent fitness, obviously, the physical components.

He also uh kind of oversees the annual wellness screening, which we'll talk about more as well because that's sort of like a core component of our wellness program, and then also CPAD, it's the candidate physical ability test.

It's a test that you take in order to show that you're physically capable to apply for the job, and we will talk about that as well.

Um, and also just so you know that CPAD is a rev revenue generating program.

Um, and then uh he also is the one who coordinates with Kaiser quite a bit.

We have uh blood draws that we do in concert with our wellness screening so that we can look at you internally and externally to see again the total wellness.

Our resiliency coordinator, which is technician HAP, please feel free to jump in if you want to add more, please.

He navigates all of the employee assistance in terms of resilience or mental health, behavioral health.

He also has relationships with everybody who provides mental health services so that he's kind of the cohesive center.

So when someone's having a crisis or they need resources, he's the guy because he knows them, he's got the relationships, and he's helping guide.

And also he is a peer support liaison.

Our peer support program is sort of like an amplifier of our behavioral health program where we train our firefighters on the street to be a member of peer support under an umbrella with uh technician hap.

Um also our chaplaincy program.

How many people are in our chaplaincy program now?

Currently we have five.

Five.

We have one here with us as well today.

Thank you for being here.

Um and then also our critical incident response, incumbent and recruit resiliency training.

He just gave training uh, for example, to our district chiefs.

Um, it's really hard when you're in an occupation where you just want to be helpful, you want to help people.

But you see a crew who experiences something, maybe it's a child related incident, something that you know it impacted them, and you want to help them, but you just don't have that expertise.

Uh technician Hap has sort of created a program where he gets a page out, he knows when something traumatic potentially happened to a crew, and he just checks in with them just to see what they need.

And to help, he did a training for district chiefs to make sure that they don't overhelp in a way that becomes counterintuitive to help.

Um also we have a wellness physician on staff right now.

It's Dr.

Elisa Coval.

She's incredibly embedded in our organization, and we value her immensely, for sure.

Um she's kind of the the when you do the wellness screening, you each rig will come out one time per year.

They're assigned to come out, and they it's it's voluntary, the level at which they participate, but most people do, and they will go through and do the physical screen, and then at the very end they will meet with Dr.

Coval so that she can look at those blood screen results and look at your your wellness screening and and make a correlation where you're at and your level of health year over year.

Um, and we'll talk more about that as well.

Um, she's a liaison between a member and their primary care physician, especially if it relates to some sort of exposure or issue that could be job related or any medications that they're taking that could affect their job.

Um, she's also helps navigate the cancer trust, which I know you all know about, and the cardiac trust, which can be complicated if you don't have someone who just knows what to do.

Then we also have our on-staff physical therapists, which um uh they are through Department of Safety, they are a team, although they are embedded with us in DFD.

We have two PTs, they are doing uh, you know, full-time assistance around injury rehab, it could be workers' comp, it could be just a direct access for a firefighter injury.

Um they're also involved with some level of injury prevention with the new recruits.

Um, it I think helps, and you should.

This is one example.

You saw a chart that showed the profound decrease in fire recruit injuries over year, um, the decrease in injuries, the degree of decrease of length of time, and the decrease in overall cost because of it.

So they have they are proving their worth, and that's sort of a coordinated thing between the physical therapists and our physical wellness coordinator, because at the same time he's coordinating what the recruits' workouts are based on what their workload, the physicality of the academy that we were talking about, what that workload will be, so he's deloading when they're maybe loading on the training side so that they're not pushing additional injuries at the same time, while physical therapists are saying, hey, this is good range of motion.

This is how you move your body.

This is how you avoid injury when you're lifting something heavy.

Um did you have more you wanted to add on that at all?

Yes, so I I'm uh with the recruits as well in the mornings, so it's uh our physical therapists, our wellness coordinator, and then myself as the resilience coordinator just to start um that mental health and wellness monitoring from the beginning of their career.

Uh our physical therapists who are also on our peer support team, um, you know, them having hands on our our firefighters on a regular basis leads to them uh interacting and speaking a lot with firefighters, and so they're also to direct traffic, they're also able to direct traffic uh into peer support, and they've been really helpful with that.

But you know, with everything that Chief Friedenberg was saying, um, the fact that they're able to, our recruits are now able to learn how to lift, right?

A lot of us come into the fire academy healthy and fit, but we've never been taught proper lifting techniques.

And over the course of our 25, 30, 35 year career, uh, we are going to spend day after day lifting 80, 90, 100, 200, 300 pounds sometimes.

Um, and it's important to understand the good mechanics that come along with that.

In addition to that, it's important to understand that most everybody in our academy will be injured because of the job at some point in their careers.

And so starting off from a from day one, proper lifting techniques and understanding their own body mechanics and the importance of some of these lifts that they're doing and lifts that are specific to the fire service, I think is really a game changer uh for helping them throughout the course of their careers so that they're not having to learn this stuff 10, 15, 20 years in when they've already got bad back, bad knees.

Um, Chuck, if you talk to a firefighter, especially one who's been on for a while, it really becomes just sort of an inventory of all your injuries, especially when you get much older.

It's like how do I work out around all the things that I've accumulated over time?

It just is that physical.

You look directly at a chief when you said that.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and then I should add the when I talked about the people in wellness, that is a tiny, tiny team for all the things that they do.

So they do kind of rely on, um, we have people who are just passionate about wellness, and so they volunteer uh to participate in like the CPAT and the wellness screenings, and um, you know, we've got a large contingency of very competent people that really do help us stay afloat, and that also includes some modified duty.

Um also we've got a clinician from Nicoletti Flatter who has firefighter history who has a bit of an interest in um, you know, the the fire department specifically, so he lends uh a lot of help to us in a lot of ways, especially around our our peer support team.

Um so I know I could sit and go on and on about all the ways that I believe the wellness team impacts the DFD.

I just want to uh focus on three core things that I think are very important to uh the way, why they're important to us.

I know we have room to grow.

I'm wishful for that, but for right now, these are these are very important things.

Um the first one is the annual wellness screenings, which we spoke about um earlier.

Again, the rigs come out um once a year.

Hopefully, they've had their blood screening done prior so that they can look at the totality of their overall fitness.

Can you just give us a very fast technician happen like what do you do when you go on for a screening?

Yeah, so every Tuesday is our screening day.

We typically have three rigs come through, three rigs, four people each.

And uh what they will do is they will come in, they will get uh, you know, baseline vitals, uh blood pressure, um, you know, pulse, and then kind of a grip strength test, which can be indicative of a lot of things over the course of their career.

Uh, in addition to that, they'll do an in-body processing, which will give them, you know, percent of body fat, skeletal muscle mass.

Um, it'll it'll break down in totality, like their kind of their the way their body is made up, and so they can start making decisions based on that as far as training goes.

Uh, if they want to lose weight, build muscle, whatever.

Uh, after that inbody, they'll go into a functional movement test.

Um, it's a real basic rudimentary functional movement test, uh, just to kind of gauge how their shoulders, neck, back things that affect us specifically in the fire service over the course of our careers.

Um, and we can track that over the course, you know, year over year, and watch trend lines for people if they're showing decreases in in movement or capabilities.

Um after that, they'll go on to do the uh the treadmill test.

Um, it's a pretty low impact uh kind of a speed walking test on an incline that increases over time.

Um, it's similar to like a VO2 max test, the Met tests, and uh that just gives us a good baseline for fitness level, a real, real basic baseline for fitness level.

Uh and then after that, they will go through and they will either um we try to pull them in and talk to them a little bit of touch base a little bit on mental health.

Uh, we can connect them with our physical therapist there as well, once we've gone through the functional movement piece.

Uh, and then we also the most important thing I think is connecting them with our our medical or our doctor, um, and then she can then go over their in-body, their functional movement, um, any mental health stuff that they've brought up on their on their, you know, the form that they fill out, uh, and in addition to that, they can go over like blood work and things like that, anything that they might need to communicate with their PCP that her speaking the language of a doctor will understand.

Uh and also, you know, I but all those of us who do have PCPs, I think we go in and see our doctor and we get a 15, 20 minute visit, and then we go to them until next year.

Um the nice thing about having our own doctor in house is that she can kind of get an extended medical history on us, know our personal information and be able to communicate that with a doctor as well, you know, given the exposures to different like heavy metals and hazardous materials that we have throughout the course of our career.

So, with that, um, you know, it's it's pretty comprehensive, it looks at the whole person, and uh you can tell over time um our increase in participation, and I won't read the entire slide, but the bottom line is is right now we're at a 92.8% participation rate of firefighters that are in the operations division, um, which is a huge testament to how the the department or the wellness program has grown.

Um also we have the uh the CPAP, which is the candidate physical ability test.

Um, we've kind of become a forefront in the Denver front range area around providing CPAT testing for people who are candidates to come on the job.

It's a great recruiting tool for us, but then it's also um I think obviously revenue generating, but um you can tell that um we are getting a reputation there as well because and I think that also there are some other close agencies who have stopped doing CPAT testing, which has increased our numbers.

Um I can tell you from basically two thousand twenty-three there was 521 tests.

Now this year so far, we're not in December, we're at 908 tests in a year.

So that's it's pretty good.

Um, just to kind of talk about the physicality, just to get on the job, that CPAT test, it involves the weighted stair climb for time, then you do a hose drag, you have to do an equipment carry, you have to raise a ladder, um, and then extend it, forcible entry, you have to go through a maze to demonstrate you can handle confined space, a victim drag, and then a ceiling breach, that's a weighted pull and pull and push exercise.

So that's just to get on the job.

Um I wanted to talk very briefly about another core, one of the three core things does these blood screenings.

Um, and another example on how fire firefighters are different than other first responders.

When you look at the type blood testing that we are doing, you have the bread and better ones that just talk about basically, you know, what is your blood count, how are your organs functioning, but then they're adding in things such as um heavy metals.

So uh we talk about exposures.

Uh we're exposed to pretty much everything, uh, tons of carcinogens, things that uh are byproducts of combustion that that uh first responders, other first responders don't deal with.

Um and uh we uh so we have added tests around that to make sure that we're covering firefighter-specific things.

We also have things like a vitamin D test that um it it's uh talks about your immunity and plays a direct role in cancer prevention.

Um so we're we're tracking those things, we're doing it year over year, so that um when you go to see Dr.

Koval and she sees, wow, you've just had a huge bump in a number.

She can actually do a preventative measure in some ways, like diabetes, where you can change your the way you're functioning to avoid even ever getting the disease.

So it's it's uh it's an important part.

Um, and I would just say overall, and we think about the wellness program and the data that we've talking about, it's clearly showing that our wellness program is working, is building trust within a group that contends to be not trustworthy, and that it is um creating a culture of wellness because of the high level of participation, it's successful, it's something I know uh our DFD leadership does not want to lose.

Um, and it's once you lose it, you got to start at zero to gain it back again.

So it's important to keep it.

Um I'm gonna just I'm gonna just speak on this really quickly.

So I know that there was a lot of discussion around the capping of our EAP, the mental health opportunities to speak to a counselor, and we just wanted to have some clarity around that because our understanding of is just it got it got basically data driven, where it was looked at based on data, what is our average numbers of usage for our first responders?

What's the least, what's the most, and then what how are we going to kind of cap this?

And it got I think placed more in a boat of we're um we're we're not letting you have care that you need, and I think that that caused a lot of um the wellness teams to look at okay, maybe we need to look past the data-driven thought and what is the need, and I think that they adjusted it.

Um so I just I think we want to create clarity.

Yes, that initial uproar.

I'm so appreciative because sometimes data driven does not fix a problem.

Sometimes it creates a problem when it's dealing with humans.

So I think on overall, we're in a good spot where we can get services to people who need more than just 12 visits.

Um the other thing I think wellness wanted to make sure that they were communicating to you is just sincere appreciation.

Um, without city leadership supporting what we're doing, we would get nowhere.

Um, and also just the awareness we want to grow.

Uh we want to get past the shoelace budget so that we've got some sort of dedicated funding at some point.

And I know this is the worst time to talk about this topic at all, but it's in our minds because we care about this topic very much.

Um I want to just quickly run down the things that we're gonna be focusing on in wellness in 26 so that you know kind of what we're talking about.

In 26, our wellness program is going to be initiating it's a comprehensive mental health survey.

It's going out to all of our firefighters, and it's going to be collecting information that uh in the end will be aggregate, so it's de-identified, and it can be compared locally and nationally and help us learn about trends and common mental health concerns that are that is happening amongst our occupation, so that we can start uh designing our programming around that.

Also, we're going to have Dr.

Koval is going to be taking over our hazmat and dive team physicals, our annual physicals, which is going to be so much better for our teams because then you have somebody who truly understands what your job is and what you, you know, what you need to do to work around your level of health to make sure you're staying the best responder around Hazmat and the dive team.

And then also we're going to be working on, we've already been working on the peer support program, which is the mental health group.

We're also going to be working on our peer fitness trainer program, which is adding in people who are in the firehouse who are also educated on nutrition, good workouts, ways to, you know, lose weight, gain weight, whatever your needs are, so that we're amplifying the wellness component, not just one person doing that for 1100 people.

Um we're gonna continue to improve and polish on our wellness screenings.

I mean, everything from right now we're doing foot scans and everything else for arches and foot care.

I think that we have great opportunities for more partnerships, and I know wellness will be trying to capitalize on that.

Also EMR, it's the electronic medical report.

Uh, that is an in-house collection of data that we're going to be entering into, where we're putting all of our data of our people in, but it stays confidential.

Um it's just another layer of confidentiality, I believe, between our wellness away from you know um scrutiny or perceived scrutiny, it just adds to trust and also great ways to uh how we deal with our people, how we can find ways to benefit them as a as a population, just the DFD.

Um lung cancer screenings, we're gonna continue those.

We partner with St.

Joe's Hospital for those.

I don't know if you guys know this, but we've talked about presumptive cancer, the types of cancer a firefighter can get, and we can presume it came from the act of firefighting.

Lung cancer is not one of those.

So one way to work on that remedy through that is to make sure that we're keeping people strained and often so that they can uh especially if they've got um the potential, some circumstance within them gives them higher potential that we uh get them tested early for intervention.

Um, and then lastly, and I think this is you know, technician have I think you kind of started this, but this moving more towards wellness at the stations, instead of just doing the wellness screenings where we're bringing them to us.

Um, and then I should also I forgot to give you one point on the blood screenings, but instead of bringing them to us, you know, to the wellness facility, they're now going out so that people uh people like it then, people who are more remote have access to the same opportunities and maybe a little lower level um stress level.

So maybe the wellness, the resilience part of that can shine a little bit, um, and they're more open to it.

Um, I wanted to be clear too on those blood screens, I forgot to tell you.

Um, those happen four times a year, and um through our liaisons with Kaiser and the relationship with wellness, um, we have them coming to us four times a year.

So we don't have to go to Kaiser.

We we go to a place here in Denver and all the firefighters go and get it done, no problem.

It's very convenient.

Um, so big picture.

I I think thank you to everyone allowing us to um speak about our wellness program.

And uh I before I end, did you guys want to add anything that I may have not added?

I was just uh I hope you guys can see we take a lot of pride in in what we're doing.

Uh Denver Fire has a great reputation around the country as a very aggressive, strong fire department.

And uh one thing that we're really working on making sure is that we build a very good reputation in our wellness department as well, and make sure that we're taking care of our firefighters throughout the course of our career.

There's a reason why people come here and stay for 25, 30, 35 years, it's because they love what they do, and we want to make sure that they can stay healthy while they're doing that.

Um we yeah, we we really enjoy our careers, we really enjoy our jobs, and we love you know being able to provide for our firefighters who then get to provide for the citizens of the city and county of Denver.

Chief Fulton, we this is the best way that we can take care of our folks.

We in my eyes, we have two customers.

We have the citizens that we serve as we roll out those doors and respond to their emergencies, and we have our folks that are on the back of those engines and trucks responding to those emergencies.

And we always think of firefighters when you think of injuries, you think of physical injuries.

We have the highest number in the profession of any profession uh as firefighters as physical injuries.

We know now things that were much different.

Um as far as cancers, that's the number one killer of firefighters.

You always think of firefighter deaths if we fall through floors, buildings collapse.

It's exposures.

It's the absorption of of the uh those chemicals through your skin.

Um unfortunately, you know, as a firefighter, it's it's not the if you're gonna get cancer, it's when you're gonna get cancer.

That's why these screenings and all of these things are so important.

The thing I I feel that is probably come to the surface more so the last five years is you look at the physical injuries, but what's happening on the inside.

And any one of us um in this room, we've experienced something traumatic.

We've experienced a family member loved one that's been in an accident that's had a heart attack that's had something that's impacted their lives that impacted you because of your relationships and your love for them.

As humans, we're not made to deal with those types of things.

And when we do, those are moments that etch your life forever, and hopefully we have minimal exposures to that.

As firefighters, we're there for those every single day.

So the terrible thing that we experience as humans once or twice in our lifetime, these folks are seeing this two, three, four times a week, sometimes a day.

Um, when you're going to children incidents and you have a uh a child that died of SIDS, and you're giving CPR to a three-month-old kid, that has an impact that I can't explain.

But the analogy I'll use is it's a glass, and every one of our firefighters, the glass is a different size, and all of those bad things are a little bit of liquid.

Eventually that glass is going to overflow.

And in the past, we dealt with it by keeping it internal.

We didn't talk about it.

You dealt with it by using alcohol and doing other things.

Today it's more open.

We have amazing people like Technician Hop that truly care and understand these difficult situations that are presented to us.

But this is the one thing that I feel that I can do as a leader by supporting these folks on giving them every tool that they need to help our folks.

So I just ask moving forward, you've been amazing with support, but when we come forward with with us related to wellness, it's not a want.

This isn't a want, this is a need.

I want our folks to be healthy, I want them to be happy, but we need them to be the best version of them when they're responding to help our citizens in our most difficult times.

So I just want to say thank you to our leadership, our technicians, everyone that's part of our program, because they are helping others when they need that help.

And again, thank you for your continued support.

Thank you so much, uh, Chief Bolton.

Uh, thank you so much, Deputy Chief uh Brandenburg and Um Technician Hap.

Um uh this presentation is so important and our partnership with you and understanding the impacts of of health and and resilience and specifically behavioral health, um, is essential.

So I appreciate uh this this uh deeper dive into Denver Health and this report out in this briefing.

Um we do have a cue, and um, Council President of Pro Tim, if you would like to be added to the key, if you don't mind, I am in me as well.

I'll put you in the cue, but we'll start off first with Council Member Flynn and then uh Councilmember Perry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, Chief, maybe uh could you give us a deeper understanding of the uh uh the blood draws and what you're looking for specifically there?

Because when I get my physical, you know, I had a blood draw recently and they got the poor report.

But you're describing something that's a little deeper and looking for different things.

Is it possible to aggregate and anonymize Denver only data?

Because I've seen reports about firefighters nationally, higher incidence of cancer, etc.

But is there a way to isolate Denver's uh experience, Denver's data compared to the general population?

I believe they're already doing that with Kaiser.

Um, and to I guess clarify a little bit, and I'll let you speak, Michael, because I know that you guys discuss this quite a bit on what tests you want to add based on how it's gonna benefit a firefighter specifically.

Um they're looking at two things.

One are what are the things that are going to um potentially arise because of the occupation in terms of disease, and then what are the things that are gonna potentially arise in terms of a career of a firefighter for their over our health because of the physicality, it doesn't change whether you're 25 or 55.

Um, so they're looking at it from that lens.

Um, do you want to do you have the ability to just think what's on that?

Yeah, so and the reason there might seem like a little bit of a disconnect there is because uh initially when this first started, it was you went to your doctor and you said I'm a firefighter, I need a more comprehensive test.

A lot of those doctors did not know what that comprehensive test was, and so they would just send you for a blood test and you take it.

So, as we've gotten to these blood draws in-house a little bit more, um Kaiser is now able to gather that data specifically right regards to our population.

So uh they do uh put together something for us uh to break out a little more specifically here, although it does also take time as well.

Um, and with that, with our own in-house uh medical record that we're gathering, that will allow us to aggregate and anonymize that data a little bit better so that it will be specific to our population.

And then we can give you breakout numbers um over the course of time, obviously.

Yeah, I think it would be useful for us all to understand what is the exponent uh exponential increase in risk among the firefighter uh family versus Denver as a whole, to maybe understand how intense the exposure is and what how we need what we need to do to address it.

I think that'd be helpful.

And the other question I have is uh, Chief, do you have any understanding about what is driving a deeper understanding for us what is driving that increase in uh firefighters seeking mental health uh services?

You said you went from up to you know ten from two to three a week.

Yeah, and this is your baby, so I'll let you speak.

But my my observation from an oversight perspective is that um we're giving permission to do that.

We're giving a safe space for that to happen, and um we're providing the kitchen sink, like you got every circumstance is different, but we've got us we've got a resource for that, and then we've got an usher, a very passionate usher, who um I think is helping people uh feel safe and to get to where they need to get.

You want to speak on that?

Yeah, and so a lot of this stems from anybody who's kind of familiar with the military and the history of the military.

Uh, it's been similar both for police and fire, I think, across the country.

Um, in that, you know, for a long time.

Uh, if your you know, superiors or supervisors or management found out about you having mental health problems in the military, it really affected your career.

Uh, and historically, I think a lot of that will be translated over to police and fire as well.

Um, and in addition to that, as a population, when you get paid to solve people's problems, you uh you become decent at it.

So our job is to perform when we show up, um, and our job is to problem solve, and our job is to kind of close the book on that and move on.

Um, and so a lot of times, even though we can see it externally, we don't necessarily see it internally.

So, like Chief said, a lot of it has been giving permission.

We've seen in the military now that they've said like this will not affect your career.

Uh, it's more important that we keep you alive and with us and healthy than it is that we, you know, know that you had a bad couple weeks, 10 years ago.

Um, so yeah, and in addition to that, it's also being a very forward-facing thing.

You know, a lot of folks don't know about the different kind of resources that we have available to them.

And so it's been getting into the firehouses kind of, let's say, I say getting into their faces and letting them know, like, here's what we have available when you need help, you know, be because like we said, a lot of times we don't, as firefighters, we don't really reach out for help until we're at the end of our rope.

It's not usually a long drawn-out process.

It's usually when we say we need help, it's because we're at the very end.

Uh, and so a combination of those things, but yeah, I think the fact that you know as some of those other things have gone, so has this.

And so the more we get out there, the more we share, the more we the more we make it okay, the you know, the the whole the whole it's okay to not be okay saying uh I think has led to people being more comfortable revealing this stuff and hopefully leading to a higher quality of life.

Do you want to add in one more thing if you don't mind?

Um, we are seeing more people who are coming for help, but also we're uh pushing the resilience program to exactly that.

Um people have things happen, but you still need to move past that.

So it's the and then what that we are continuing to work on.

Yes, we're gonna get you resources, yes, we are gonna make sure that you have what you need to work through, you know, whatever it is, but then at the end, how do we get you back to work?

How do we get your mind right so that we are serving the city and we are staying focused on, you know, sometimes our job is not pretty, but we still we still move.

We gotta move.

Our mission is to put out a healthy functioning firefighter, and uh our mission is to put out a firefighter that leaves better than they came to us.

So we try to ensure that with everybody from a physical, mental, um, spiritual perspective.

We want all of that, we want them to be a complete person when they leave us with the tools and knowledge that over the course of their life things could get shaky, and if they do, they know where to go, so it doesn't result in them, you know, making more decisions.

Councilman, if I may, one thing that we've recognized and changed as an organization is our policies reflect these beliefs as well.

So our dispatchers know if our folks are dispatched and they're responding on on an incident involving a child, a multi-casualty auto accident, firefighters um, you know, responding to fires with with deaths or significant injuries, that dispatcher immediately notifies our wellness team from the district chiefs, so everyone would be aware of that.

So when these folks get back from that scene, they get a chance to debrief.

If we need to call clergy, we'll call clergy.

And sometimes, and we have the we give the officers permission.

If it's a bad incident, someone needs to leave and just go home and hug their kid, they do that.

We allow them to do that.

So this is something you know we believe in so strongly that our our policies enforce people's ability to make these decisions and help people with the needs that they're just speaking to.

I appreciate the clarity on it because when I saw this and listened, I was thinking are more and more firefighters having mental health issues, or is it a the fact that more and more now are becoming more aware?

We're putting more offerings out there, so it's bringing more.

In other words, the availability is identifying folks who have mental health needs or desires to seek services, and now they're seeking them, whereas 10 years ago they might not have, five years ago they might not have.

So I just want to make sure that we're not seeing things happening that are causing more folks to have issues on the job.

So I appreciate the clarification.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Councilmember Parity.

Yeah, so um I this has just been very moving, and I really appreciate it.

Um, and I will tell you all that my dad was a health health safety and environmental manager at um a variety of mines up in Wyoming and Montana.

Um, copper, coal, and then finally um he ended up moving over into oil and gas and felt that that industry was like wildly unsafe in comparison, which was kind of funny.

Um, and I worked for him at Trona as well.

And I I worked for him one summer in his department.

Um, and I I like the thing I know from my dad is that like safety is mostly culture, you know, like it's mostly about um not going down those paths of like machismo or the that you see in these kind of professions, or um not giving people like the time that they need or not um not showing that it's a priority, right?

Because it's so common and so easy for workers to feel like um either again, maybe it's a relational social kind of thing if we're talking about mental health, but even stuff like lifting, like people can act like you know, like it's um squishy or silly to like practice lifting techniques.

Well, not until you slip a disc, which I did when I was 19, working my dad's mind.

So probably they should have trained the interns better.

Um my dad's dead, so I can criticize him now, but no, just joking.

Um, but it's just really like it's you guys getting that right a hundred percent is coming from the leadership, and I I guarantee you all have like prevented so much injury and harm by what you're doing.

Um, and it just like I'm just like so grateful and happy to hear that.

Um, so yeah, I I knew this presentation was coming in, but I um didn't expect to be feeling this emotional about it, and I just really appreciate it.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Parity.

Um, looking around the room to see if there's anyone else in a queue.

I know I checked in with Council President Pro Tem, she's not in the queue.

Um I have uh two quick questions on your collaborations with uh Kaiser, which I think is fantastic.

Um Joe saved my life uh when I was battling cancer um uh several years ago.

I think it's it's now 15 years, I think I've been um healthy.

And so, fantastic partnership, but I'm curious as to your relationship with uh Denver Health and their behavioral health um programs and processes, process I mean programs and initiatives, and now that they have that entire new behavioral health um center that's integrating um both body and mind health.

I'm very curious from your perspective if you anticipate additional collaborations with Denver Health or what's your current uh Denver Health collaborations on on that.

I can tell you I went to the open house for that that um wing, that area.

It was very cool and uh very um progressive.

Yes, and I also know that you're already working on that.

Do you want to speak to me?

Yeah, so I actually had the opportunity earlier this year to meet uh Dr.

Christian Thurstone at an event at CU Anchet's, and we did talk about hoping to collaborate.

Um at my level, I don't make those kind of heady decisions.

However, he was very communic communicative and very eager to kind of engage uh with our population.

So we're hopeful.

I'm still relatively new to some of this.

I've been on a fire truck my entire career for 15 years.

So I'm I'm one year into the office.

I'm still learning how to type, mind you, but uh, understanding some of the ins and outs of how those relationships do work has been a bit of a barrier for me, however, I'm trying to overcome that.

Um but all that to say it is on our radar, and it's something that I know that we would love to do.

Um for us, more resources is always better.

And I do think it would be good to have a good relationship with Denver Health, uh, you know, in that behavioral health capacity, especially knowing that they were along with us as well.

Yeah, that's that's awesome.

Um Councilman Parody, I think you're back in the queue.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot because I was having feelings that I also had a more substantive question that I think was also asking about, which is um I just wanted to go back to when we talk about all the exposure risks um to you guys.

I know those are really real.

Um, and that my sister also is um she works for a national uh coalition of occupational safety and health, and so um, and she did her undergraduate her graduate degree, her master's on toxin exposure.

So we're wandering into a family obsession here.

But I just would love to hear more about um where we're at with all of those chemicals, like what just I would say like the highest level of specificity of what you all know contributes to cancer or other health risks that you do get exposed to and kind of why.

I would really, really like to go super deep on that, and anything that you um need from us as counsel to help getting away from that exposure, uh we want to know.

So I'll just uh pin that a little bit.

I know the PFAS at the airport has been an issue and everything else, but um anything you want to say about now is totally fine, but I think I might be interested in kind of following up more and just helping me become more educated about what those sources of exposure are exactly.

Well, it's it's an interesting thing you say that because you know you go into a structure fire and you don't know, right?

It could be anything.

And I understand we were SCBAs, but there's also you know, the act of walking up to it and being around it and picking up your gear, you're around all of those off-gassing carcinogens.

Um, and it could be plastics, it could be um any kind of asbestos, poisons, um, just um byproducts of combustion that have not fully combusted have carcinogens in them.

It may not even have been fully studied or whatever because they're there's just so much.

Uh even our own bunking gear we've talked about, and the the you know, the PFAS within that, uh, when it heats up in with your groin in your armpits, um, you know, there's studies around it's increased um cause of prostate cancer and things like that.

So it it's a gamut, and I I know you've done a lot of um the I mean we can spend hours just talking about the chemicals that we're exposed to, but it's the benzenes.

Um HCN is a big one.

So uh when uh most most components in houses now they're all synthetic, they're all plastics.

Right, and all of those give off a litany of of different types of chemicals.

But what we found through studies is our temperatures raise in the body, the body temperature raises, and for every degree of temperature raises the absorption rate increases almost 400%.

So it's uh I seen uh uh councilman's eyebrows raise when he realized that lung cancer wasn't covered under the trust.

Well, the I think the assumption on their end is we have production, right?

We work in a CBA, we're breathing our own clean air, which is somewhat accurate, but it's the exp it's the absorptions that really get you.

So on you know, on your neck, um you you you've got so many different glands, and and your body heats up, it's sucking all those poisons in.

And it's it's funny now, but as you know, when my kids were younger, I would go home and you take a shower and you smell like a campfire.

So I was like, Dad, you smell like a campfire.

This is two, three or days after a fire because your body is pushing that out.

Now they're finding that saunas are somewhat helpful, but it depends on the timing of the sauna after things.

But again, a lot of it's a the exposure or the absorption, and uh that is why certain cancers, you know, it's upwards of 400% higher uh probability of getting cancers as as firefighters.

So um yeah, we we definitely have a love to sit down and and get more in-depth on the terms of the causes.

Thank you.

Oh, is there a tr is there like a um publication that any of you get like a newsletter about like firefighter health or something that I could sign up for?

Does that exist?

I'm sure there is.

There's got to be something, so that's awesome.

Thanks.

We also can maybe connect you a little bit with Dr.

Colwell and get some more specific writings on, you know, the nitty gritty and Sarah.

Our department physician is passionate about all things that affect firefighters.

Great.

She would love to connect with you.

I love those.

I love people that love their jobs.

Thank you guys very much.

Thanks, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Perry.

Um thank you all for the the presentation.

Uh I mean it's beyond just simply what you're presenting.

It's uh um to understand your commitment to uh fiscal and behavioral health for Denver Fire and the resources that you're pouring in and the responsibility we have as council to make sure that through our budget process and our solidarity with you that we're making sure that you're being funded.

And so I appreciate Deputy Chief um bringing forward clarity on EAP and making sure that as we look at um budgets, um, we're not just data um specific focused, but we're looking at the quality of life and health of you know our city employees, especially Denver Fire, who each of the individuals within Denver Fire, uh putting yourselves at higher um health risk than most of the work uh that is done.

Um I appreciate uh technician rap your um your your real focus on a lot of the behavioral health stuff.

I think that is so powerful, and I think not just for Denver Fire and for city employees that are watching this and city employees around the table, city council members.

I think um the work that we do oftentimes we um are in service, um, but we don't spend the time to stop, reflect, and see the impacts of the service that we're providing, even at the level that we do as city council members to make sure we're taking on EAP and we're listening and having those discussions with counselors to make sure we're not internalizing our stuff and bringing up our families.

So thank you so much, which is hard to do not to do.

So thank you all.

Thank you, Chai, who's in the audience most likely, usually doesn't get um the camera can pan over to Chai.

I mean it is the holidays, pan over to her.

There she is.

Stand up, Chai.

Stand up, Chai.

So I want to say Chai, for making um all these things happen.

Uh our um engagement at many times with Denver Fire comes through you.

Um, your knowledge, your relationships with us, um, your role is behind the scenes, but without your role, um, we really as city council don't have the um the intentional uh access with Denver fires we need to, and so I wanted to take some time to just highlight you and thank you for all of your dedication, your decades of work within the city, and now your long-term support of Denver Fire.

It's greatly appreciated.

Um and then to uh the chaplain and everyone else that's here.

Thank you all for your work.

It is the holidays, and just wanted to make sure I I wish you on behalf of Denver City Council and um this committee uh happy holidays for whatever you celebrate.

Um please be safe.

I know this time of year is heightened work for you um with things that are happening in our homes, uh things that are lighting on fire and stuff, so you don't get a break where many of us will.

So thank you all for your service.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for presentation.

And with that, we have no items on consent, believe it or not.

And so this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.

I don't know if I'm gonna