The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians offers this collection of resources for emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to help them understand and manage their own work-related stressors and mental health and support the individuals they serve. The collection includes articles, research, online information, and hotlines.

Designed as a peer education effort for firefighters, this website features videos in which firefighters, fire chiefs, and captains talk about stress and trauma that may be involved in work as a firefighter, as well as experiences of seeking and taking part in treatment. Firefighters Helping Firefighters was created in partnership with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and with funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Although the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health developed this web page in response to 2017 hurricanes that hit the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the page provides information relevant to any responder deployed to support communities after hurricanes and floods. The page provides information about stress and coping, and links are provided to resources for more information.

This free, on-demand online course describes Stress First Aid and prepares fire, emergency medical services, and rescue personnel to use this technique, which includes several actions responders can use to manage stress for themselves and their teams. While the course is available free of charge, people need to set up a free account with the Fire Hero Learning Network website to access it.

This 2-hour online course covers stress management for first responders—including stress they experience in the field as they assist others as well as the stress people they help may be experiencing due to a disaster. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Public Health Training Network also contributed to the production of this course.

This tip sheet describes some of the challenges involved in disaster response work and how these challenges may make responders more vulnerable to substance misuse. It lists signs of substance misuse, suggests ways to address substance misuse issues in yourself or someone you care about, and identifies resources for additional support.

This 30-minute training is intended for emergency responders who work shifts longer than normal work hours. It gives an overview of how long hours can affect an individual’s health and provides tips for taking care of yourself during active duty.

This tip sheet suggests ways for disaster responders to manage the transition back to work after deployment for a response effort. It identifies ways to bolster personal resilience and address issues that responders commonly encounter when returning to work, and it presents signs of the need for additional support related to mental health or substance use.

This toolkit provides police officers with information and tools for practicing self-care. It utilizes several models to give police officers a background and understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder and ways to manage its symptoms.

The Headington Institute offers a variety of trainings, educational materials, and counseling and consultation services for humanitarian relief and development workers and emergency responders. It does work to support the well-being of responders and response organizations and the effectiveness of response efforts.

This online brochure provides physical and psychological safety tips for disaster responders. The brochure notes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Resilience and Mental Health Team supported development of this resource. A section of the brochure describes resilience to stress, lists signs of stress, and suggests ways to build resilience.

This free online course is designed to prepare first responders and others to maintain psychological health during and after emergency response to serve others more effectively. The course defines and describes stress, explains potential effects of work with survivors, and offers tools and tips for managing stress. Although the course is offered free of charge, registration with the CoursePlus website is required to complete it.

An organization with more than 65,000 members, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) represents paramedics, emergency medical technicians, emergency medical responders, and other emergency medical services (EMS) professionals. NAEMT provides education for EMS professionals, supports research and innovation in EMS, and does work to improve both patient care and work environments for EMS professionals.

This 60-minute webcast identifies types and sources of stress that disaster behavioral health responders may face, as well as methods of self-care. It also covers ways that supervisors and managers of disaster behavioral health responders can support their teams in coping with stress.

This tip sheet describes compassion fatigue and its components, burnout and secondary traumatic stress. It offers tips for coping with compassion fatigue, and it also describes compassion satisfaction and notes ways to foster compassion satisfaction among members of your response team.

This part of the SAMHSA Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC) website explains that responders face heightened risk of mental illness and substance use disorders due to the nature of their work. It identifies signs of stress; ways to manage stress; and related resources from SAMHSA DTAC, including online trainings, webcasts, and tip sheets.

This pamphlet defines and describes indirect trauma, which is sometimes also referred to as compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma. It explains how indirect traumatization occurs, highlights effects of indirect trauma, and suggests ways to cope.

This website offers information for prehospital patient care, providing resources for emergency medical service personnel to help them do their jobs better and more safely. The site features information about training, as well as news articles about major emergencies, medical issues, and administrative and leadership topics.

The ProQOL is a commonly used measure of the negative and positive effects of helping others who have experienced suffering and trauma, including disaster survivors. The ProQOL has sub-scales for compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress.

This website provides information about trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for a variety of audiences.

Offered through the website Coursera, this 7-hour course introduces students to the RAPID model of Psychological First Aid (Reflective Listening, Assessment of Needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition). While students must pay to receive a certificate of course completion, they can take the course free of charge without receiving a certificate (though site registration is required).

This tip sheet explains how families are typically notified after a disaster that their relatives are missing or deceased, and it emphasizes the importance of working with local authorities on notification of families in a sensitive, appropriate way. It offers do’s and don’ts for disaster responders helping local and national authorities make families aware that their relatives are missing or dead following a disaster.

This tip sheet provides guidance on communicating with the media for responders serving communities affected by disasters that involved the death of many people. The tip sheet emphasizes the importance of preparation and of identifying a set number of people who will provide information to the media. It also offers tips specifically for media interviews.

Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, this app is designed to support responders in meeting the mental health and substance use-related needs of disaster-affected communities. It can be used to access preparedness and response resources and find local mental health and substance use disorder treatment services for referrals.

The SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline is a 24-hour helpline staffed by trained counselors. The helpline can be used by any person, including a first responder, who is experiencing emotional distress due to a disaster. Responders may also want to make disaster survivors aware of this resource.