CFED Conference

Start Date: 05/22/2019

Description:

The California Fire EMS & Disaster Conference (CFED) was held in Palm Desert. I presented a 75 minute workshop on HOPE AACR in the afternoon, and we were asked to have HOPE teams available to greet conference attendees in the morning and throughout the day.

The workshop drew around 30 attendees, several attendees had worked with HOPE before, and shared their experience with the audience. One attendee shared that her daughter is a student at NorthPark Elementary (where hope provided support 2 years ago following a School shooting). She shared that her daughter did not want to return to school, but the dogs motivated her and helped her have a positive experience when school reopened. The attendee (A first responder) expressed her gratitude. There were also several people in attendance who were very interested in possibly becoming HOPE teams.

During the morning keynote sessions there were several emotional topics (TUbbs Fire, military debrief of a rescue in Afghanistan, and human trafficking)- several attendees sought out our teams during the presentation. One team (Carol & Busy) spent a significant amount of time with one person. Our teams received quite a bit of attention throughout the day and we met lots of first responders who were unfamiliar with HOPE, and also saw many old friends.

Agency: CFED
Teams:

Carol Betzer & Busy, Laura Finlon & gunner, Katy Priest & Wall-E, Cathleen McMurran & Fargo


Region: