Oxford Fire Debriefing

Start Date: 12/03/2021

Description:

Team deployed to Oxford Fire Department to support a peer support debriefing following the school shooting at Oxford H.S. This debriefing was all fire department personnel as another debriefing with other agencies had already occurred a few days before.

On arrival I made contact with the FD contact and was introduced to the Chief and the debriefing team from a variety of neighboring departments. As the TL, I met with the debriefing team prior to the start, and we determined the game plan for the morning and how we could be utilized.

This debriefing was very large. There were 36 responders, 4 debriefing staff, 4 HOPE teams plus myself as the TL. The room was formed into a large circle that spread from wall to wall. We positioned the dog teams around the room spread out the best we could. We were asked to not move around if possible. The debriefing took four hours starting at 0830 and ending at 1230. The dogs worked the room as much as possible. The configuration made this difficult, we were only able to let the dogs go as long as the end of the leash which limited our ability somewhat.

After the debriefing we did some meet and greets with firefighters who had not seen the dogs yet. As we were leaving two high school students from the EMT program the department runs had showed up. We came back inside and let them sit with the dogs for awhile. While that was occurring, Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist arrived to meet the department. We had an opportunity to say hello and tell him about HOPE. He took our card and thanked us for being there.

Before leaving I also met with one of the deputy Emergency Managers for Oakland County as well as some of the executive staff. They took our information and asked if we could be added to the permanent contact list in Emergency Management. They are considering using us for the school when it returns, but newer information seems to lead towards another team being chosen. We also met with the Chief from Springfield Fire Department who asked if we could do a presentation to the Oakland County Fire Chiefs in the future to talk about HOPE and our capabilities. The peer support team also took our information for future needs.

Agency: Oxford Fire Department
Teams:

Becky Engelter/Ella, Bob Starr/Oliver, Kay Rice/Maia, Kristin Smith/Comet


Region: