For Emilie DeGroff, art and dance are more than hobbies. They are tools she hopes can help New York\u2019s first responders cope with the mental toll of their jobs.<\/p>\n
DeGroff recently graduated from Russell Sage College with a degree in expressive arts in mental health. She also serves as a certified interior volunteer firefighter, responding to calls while planning a career in counseling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI plan to become a licensed mental health counselor and hope to work with first responders and veterans, helping them with all of the stressors that they see day to day,\u201d DeGroff said.<\/p>\n
She said movement therapy and creative expression can give people an outlet when they struggle to put their emotions into words.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge stigma, especially around male firefighters,\u201d she said. \u201cThey really can\u2019t express their emotions. They really have to just continue on with their day.\u201d<\/p>\n
That stigma shows up in the data the state collected last year. In a 2025 mental health needs assessment, 94% of first responders surveyed said stress was a challenge in their community; 90% cited burnout; and 87% pointed to anxiety as an issue for the field.<\/p>\n
DeGroff said she has felt some of that pressure herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely experienced some anxieties, like going on the calls and stuff, worrying about, \u2018Is my training enough? Am I good enough? Can my crew rely on me?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
One of the people she has learned from is Will Charbonneau, a former Cohoes fire chief who spent about 30 years in the fire service. He retired after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and now speaks openly about the need for mental health support in emergency services.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to say I run into burning buildings for a living. OK, I\u2019m brave,\u201d Charbonneau said. \u201cBut the hardest thing I ever did was walking into my therapist\u2019s office. It was terrifying. It really was. So we have to make that, OK, just like going for a physical. We have to normalize this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charbonneau now spends time with students at Russell Sage, including DeGroff, sharing his experience with PTSD and encouraging future counselors to work with first responders. He said DeGroff\u2019s combination of firefighting experience and expressive arts training puts her in a position to help others in ways he did not see earlier in his career.<\/p>\n
DeGroff said her goal is to carry that work forward as she pursues advanced training in mental health counseling. She believes creative practices such as drawing and movement can help firefighters and other first responders process difficult calls and prepare for the next one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important for these first responders to talk about their issues and what exactly they\u2019re feeling,\u201d she said. \u201cSo then that way, they can be fully equipped to handle the next job.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Emilie DeGroff, art and dance are more than hobbies. They are tools she hopes can help New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":995717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4317],"tags":[128947,141706,51681,276325,105,218,38147,12,22339,16,15,51682],"class_list":["post-995716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-app-health","tag-app-public-safety","tag-corey-james","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116667400005743346","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}