{"id":164326,"date":"2025-08-21T17:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T17:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164326\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T17:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T17:27:10","slug":"phoenix-fire-department-creates-member-services-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/164326\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Fire Department creates Member Services Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 Firefighters routinely respond to calls where they\u2019re interacting with people on the worst day of their lives. The Phoenix Fire Department recently created the Member Services Division dedicated to helping firefighters and their loved ones through some of the emotional challenges that can come with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur motto here in Phoenix Fire is \u2018our family helping your family.\u2019 \u2026 Our motto in Member Services is \u2018our family helping our family,\u2019\u201d Capt. David Kirk, the program\u2019s manager, said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Member Services offers a 24\/7 phone line as well as a physical hub at Station 30 for those seeking support, though Kirk said the team will go where it\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of the unique piece to our shop. We\u2019re mobile, so if we need to go to your house, or to a station, or a restaurant \u2014 wherever the member or their family member wants to meet up, we have access to that, and we can make that happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kirk said they also introduced Car 20, a response unit that automatically dispatches to calls that tend to be more traumatic for first responders, such as infant drownings and suicides.<\/p>\n

United Phoenix Firefighters Association Local 493 has historically provided services and resources, but Kirk said the department wanted to build its own unit apart from the union\u2019s.<\/p>\n

PFD first piloted the program in June 2024 and officially launched Member Services in July of this year. Since the start of the pilot, Kirk said the team has had more than 11,000 interactions with first responders and their families, despite the department having just 1,800 firefighters.<\/p>\n

New Phoenix Fire division takes holistic approach<\/p>\n

Kirk said the department is working to create a holistic approach to physical and mental health. For example, all 650 of the department\u2019s sleeping spaces are being supplied with grounding bed mats through a donation from Earthing.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mats are made of a conductive material designed to dissipate static electricity from your body into the earth through a cord connected to the ground. The company says this offers numerous health benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers are falling asleep faster, they\u2019re dreaming again after not being able to dream in over a decade, the aches and pains are going away. \u2026 It\u2019s kind of changed the culture a lot,\u201d Kirk said.<\/p>\n

Phoenix Fire Capt. Paramedic Courtney Ebright was skeptical of the mats at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, I did find I was falling asleep faster when we came back from calls, which is something I normally struggle with,\u201d Ebright said. \u201cI would actually wake up in the mornings after a shift feeling like I slept all night, when in fact I know that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ebright said she\u2019s experiencing less brain fog and more mental capacity for the things she needs to accomplish during the day since she started using the grounding mats.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the International Agency for Research on Cancer listed chronic shift work as a probable carcinogen. Studies have shown<\/a> sleep cycles that disrupt circadian rhythm are linked to higher rates of breast cancer and prostate cancer.<\/p>\n

We want to hear from you.<\/p>\n

Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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