 Welcome to this short video for family of CFA members. Volunteering and working in the emergency services is a unique experience, and we know that families of CFA members share in this experience. You share their commitment to service, such as the unpredictable response times, deployments away from home and other demands on time. Volunteering and working for CFA is incredibly rewarding, but there can also be challenges such as responding to potentially traumatic events. You witness, experience, and share both the positive and negative impacts on your loved one. In this short video, we'll talk about looking out for your loved one, as well as taking care of yourself. We'll share information on the CFA supports that are available to all CFA members, as well as their immediate family. First, let's talk about some things for you to consider as family. Let's meet CFA member Cliff Overton and his wife, Tanya. I'm always proud to tell people that Cliff volunteers for the CFA, because I think it's a very unselfish thing to do, to get up in the middle of the night when I'm still curled up in the warmth, and out they go and fight fires or save people from road accidents or campaign fires. So I love that ability to be able to say that's what he does. I'm very proud of him and he's very inspirational. Sometimes I do think of it as a quite selfish thing, because I get such personal fulfilment out of providing the service to the community. I mean, they get something out of it, but so do I, because I feel like I'm contributing. I just enjoy the people that I'm with in the role. I'm a very curious person, so the opportunity just to keep learning and experiencing. There's an element of challenge and excitement. Sometimes the nature of the call-outs can be challenging. We go to everybody else's bad day and try and make it a little less bad, but then we've, as a result, we've been to a bad day, and we need to remember that and deal with it when we have to. People cope with challenging experiences differently. Sometimes people are not affected at all by events. However, if someone is affected, often it's the people closest to them that notice first. Partners and family may become the main confident or sounding board if the CFA members talks about their experiences. Members may also not share much at all, wanting to protect their families from details. We encourage you to talk about this openly with each other, what should and should not be shared, so that there is a shared understanding and open communication. If I can wind back the clock and sit down with Tanya and say, okay, so I'm a CFA volunteer. Let's have a chat about what that means for us in our relationship, what your expectations are, what mine are, and how we would agree to communicate on the things that I experience as a volunteer. You might even just set some, you know, look, if I get home and I say, yep, that was interesting and I disappear into the shed for half an hour, right? Just let him go. At the end of half an hour, come and get me. It's like, you know, you could almost have some, you know, safe words or key words or just things that you might set up as a couple that, you know, it's like with Tanya and I, you know, the, oh, you've got your Black Saturday face on. Obviously that wasn't good, you know. Encourage your loved one to celebrate good experiences with you too. Celebrate the wins, you know, and share the, share how good you are feeling about what you just did with your fellow volunteers and the positive results of what you did. Share that with the family, you know, because we've, you know, we've sat here and we've talked about how do you deal with all the negatives? Well, you know, just remember, you can come back from the best job ever and celebrate that. As a family member, you might be the first to notice changes in someone's mood and behaviors. Well, as Cliff said, it's been at least a six-year journey for him getting on top of his mental health experience. And it's still, again, still happening today. Oh, yeah. So I probably noticed it. Certainly, you said colleagues told you, but I certainly knew from the first night. So Cliff is not sleeping well, his personality changed. He's usually a very, very easygoing person. And all of a sudden, things becoming really difficult, whereas before they wouldn't have been an issue. I felt like I was tiptoeing around, whereas normally we were pretty open in our relationship. So I thought, wow, I'm not able to talk to you about anything. You're not talking much to me about anything. So there was definitely a behavioral change. Changes in your loved one can show up in various ways. And it's different for everybody. Keep an eye out for changes to their usual behavior and moods. You are likely to know their normal baseline better than anyone else. So you're in a strong position to notice quicker than others. Some things to look out for might include changes in sleep pattern, appetite, time spent on hobbies and interests, amount of social interactions, time at work or school. You may notice increased alcohol use, emotional withdrawal, increased sadness, increased anger, less patience than usual, more forgetfulness than usual, less focus and concentration than usual. These are just some examples. But if you notice changes like this in your loved one, there are some things you can do to support. Always back yourself, because you know that person. So if you notice something, don't let it go. Say something, yeah? And I think sometimes we just think, oh no, he's just having a bad day. So we all know, we all have bad days. We're not expecting everyone to be perfect. But if you can see that something appears out of character, it keeps going on. Say something to them, speak up. Don't worry about how they might, you know, you might feel a bit silly saying it. They might push back, right? But sometimes it's just you saying, hey, I've noticed this. You don't seem to be sleeping well. Or gee, you responded to that a little bit differently to how you might have usually is everything OK. You've got to speak up. You've got to say something. You've just got to, I don't care how this is going to go down. You might say, I certainly started very gently. So I would careful, careful, careful. I don't come in there. And then sometimes you just think, is any of this going in? And sometimes you might have to say it a little bit more forcefully or look, I don't think anything's changed. But I still believe the minute, you'll be probably the first person. They might be thinking, I'm feeling a bit weird, but I can certainly tell the difference between what is my cliff and what is the cliff that's impacted by other stress and trauma. It's a very different cliff. You can also become a strong motivator and support for someone to seek help. Talking about it can show that you care and that they're not alone. It may also help them to confront the issue and provide a source of strength to assist in their path back to feeling well. But it's not just about the support for your loved ones. We want you to know that your well-being matters too. The role you play in the life of your loved one is important and CFA also supports your mental health and well-being. As an immediate family member, you can access the same support services as CFA members. CFA well-being support services are accessed through the well-being support line on 1-800-959-232. They are free, confidential and available 24-7. Let's look at what those services are now. The member assistance program, often called MAP, provides CFA members and their families access to psychologists and counsellors who are external to CFA. You can speak with a qualified mental health professional for CFA or personal related issues. There are other services available through MAP too, such as support with finances, lifestyle, career, relationships and more. The peer support program appears to be your current members of CFA. So we know what it means to work and volunteer alongside you. You might see a peer at a fire station after a difficult incident or on deployment with a strike team or around the office. Peers are trained in psychological first aid and volunteer their time to provide well-being support to you, our fellow CFA members. Chaplaincy at CFA provide non-denominational, emotional, pastoral and spiritual support. This could be anything from a conversation about the quality of your day to helping an individual or family through the death of a loved one. Our chaplains are committed to confidentiality and inclusivity by helping you in any way they can, no matter what your beliefs may be. The organisation wellbeing team are CFA employees. This includes a member wellbeing adviser in each region. We work to support the psychological health and safety of CFA members across a range of programs. This includes a delivery of education, term support and referral and coaching for leaders. Working with teams and individuals, our goal is to support a great place to volunteer and work. These support services are available to you and your immediate family. They are free, confidential and available 24-7. Our web-based app called CFA Thrive is a confidential online self-assessment tool. It can help our members and their families monitor their wellbeing and recommends further resources and support. For more information, please visit the Wellbeing Hub. You can find more information and resources on the CFA Wellbeing Hub found on the CFA intranet. Thank you for watching this video. We hope it's given you further insights into the CFA mental health and wellbeing supports for you and your family.