Empowering First Responder Families Peer Support Group

Empowering First Responder Families Peer Support Group is a group that supports the families of first responders in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Our mission is to provide resources, tools, and education to family members of first responders living with a mental and moral injury. This peer support group navigates through an informal gathering and is faciliated by mental health professionals. Within this space we provide an openness of challenging conversations, with compassionate understanding and utilizing encouragment within a safe and nonjudgemental space.

Peer Support Group outcomes

1

Peer Support Group Assistance
Our group offers access to a range of expertise and lived experiences dialing the spectrum of social and mental wellbeing.

2

Comprehensive Resources
We offer our community members with a collection of guided resources that are available online to provide assistance and support.

3

Active Support
Our peer group will also be organizing investment based workshops called "Empowering Lens©" starting in November 2024 to guide community building and to provide support to the families of first responders. Workshops are cohort style.

Empowering Lens©: A proactive mental health program

Empowering Lens© is a proactive mental health program that entails a half day workshop for First responders and their partners or family member. This program is designed to reduce stigma, provide psycho-education of the injury ; to reduce the risk of endured trauma amd to increase awareness of what could happen and how we can protect ourselves and one another. Empowering Lens© acknowledges all of this and aligns the understanding of the life as a first responder and as a loved one. Empowering them through different lenses and forming an actionable plan & vision ,that, even at our breaking point, we can say, “we’ve got this!”.

Overview of Empowering Lens© Workshop

  • This half a day workshop will share a proactive psycho-educational approach to an overall biopsychosocial perspective, where we explore more than definitions and lingos in the first responder world. Proactive is often defined and preparedness of what can come before it arrives. In our first responder world the unknown is manifested and trained to be prepared what no one can predict. Empowering Lens© provides a filled space for the gap for first responders, their partners /family member that some preparedenss is doable and tangible through awareness. Overall view of what is shared in this half a day workshop **
  • Module 1:

  • Redefining words - Beyond The Defintions in the First Responder World
  • Lived Experiences and It's Significance

  • Module2.

  • Creating a proactive safety space. Safety plan looks different from a first responder lens to a partner lens to a family member lens. Redefining without stigma.

  • a. How to select the “right fit” for First responders, for families ,for children under the age of 13 in the mental health industry.
  • b. Everyone deserves a support team around them. Let's build one.

  • Module 3.

  • When financial burden becomes real.
  • The Daunting Tasks of Endless Questions - What? How? Where? When?
  • Rights to advocacy.


  • Module 4:

  • Interactive Group work - . Proactively using Module 1 to 3.

  • Module 5.
  • Resiliency – are we born with it?!
  • Q & A End of Program

  • **Disclaimer: This program is NOT to be replicated, copied, and/or distributed. This is the legal property rights of
  • Empowering Lens ©powered by Embracing Empowerment Counselling Services©

Care Behind The Badge

Parul Shah - Founder of Empowering First Responder Families Peer Support and Empowering Lens©

In life, we often say “we wear many hats”.
In the first responder world , boots on the ground depicts physically connecting, caring, assessing, protecting , saving a situation in real time.
As a first responder family member, we wear both forms of this analogy.
Families are often dismissed towards assessing, connecting, protecting and understanding the injured. And the irony, families are often the first to see the misalignment of the psyche.

Leaving us, as the forgotten ones within the first responder world.
Yet, what if, there was a space where we get to understand each other.
Imagine having a space where we have tools to deal with an aftermath of a shift even before it begins, those who welcome loved ones dealing with things we want to understand and being understood. Imagine a world that permits a human to learn the challenges of what it may be like to live within the first responder space.Families wear many hats, often change footwear to match the situation and never falters for wanting to understand the psychological life of a first responder . Walking in someone else’s footwear is designed to know what may appear on the outside is the opposite to what we feel in the inside. Like the saying “not all wounds are visible” I’m a very proud first responder family member for over 23 years and the shoes I wear that requires to understand boots on the ground, is a mission I continue to strive every day within my job, within this space, in my PhD candidacy, as a human and in my home.



What Support Looks Like

Empowering Families
We strive to provide families of first responders with the security, strength and resilience they need in challenging times through guidance, resources through our bi-weekly peer support groups and through proactive workshops.
Wellbeing Tools
At Empowering First Responder Families Peer Support Group, we provide a wide selection of resources, workshops and tools that help families stay well and connected.
Expert Support
When necessary we provide a vetted list of professionals to increase the wellbeing of families of first responders. Our guidance is within the accordance of Mental Health Commission Of Canada , Licensed and insured through Regulatory Colleges and through various Peer Support Training.

Want to Attend? Contact Us

Contact Info
Email: empoweringfirstresponderfamili@gmail.com
Peer Support Group Hours
Tuesdays 6:30pm-8:00pm Bi-Weekly Dates: November 19th, 2024 December 3rd, 2024 December 17th, 2024 January 7th, 2025 January 21st, 2025 February 4th, 2025 February 18th, 2025 March 4th, 2025 March 18th, 2025 April 1st, 2025 Location : Kanata, Ontario Exact Location: Not publicly disclosed Small admin fee per group attendance: 5.00 dollars SPECIAL DATES: Half a day workshop for EMPOWERING LENS (in person) November 26th 2024 Cohort 2pm till 6pm EST Fee per First Responder couple or first responder/family member 300.00 dollars. E-receipt will be provided for insurance purposes. Location: Not publicly disclosed. Cohorts for 2025 will be announced via website at the end of December 2024.
Empowering First Responder FamIlies Peer Support Group
contact us
empoweringfirstresponderfamili@gmail.com
follow us
© Copyright 2024 Empowering First Responder Families Peer Support Group is powered by Embracing Empowerment Counselling Services. All rights reserved. All registered trademarks herein are the property of their respective owners.