Surviving guides

A first-of-its-kind pilot program seeks to help Scarborough residents prepare for and recover from crisis.

SCARBOROUGH — Since 9/11, it seems the world has been besieged by one natural disaster after another: Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti.

And as those locales continue to slowly struggle back in one way or another, it has become clear that preparation is about more than simply keeping a well-stocked disaster kit. There’s also preparing for the post-traumatic stress that comes with disaster, and that hits safety personnel as hard as it does civilians.

No one knows that better than Scarborough’s public safety leaders – Fire Chief Mike Thurlow and Police Chief Robert Moulton. In 1979, as a new firefighter, Thurlow spent an evening picking up body parts next to the train tracks, after a man came out on the losing end of an encounter with the engine. Moulton was there, too, that night, photographing the evidence under the train.

“There were pieces of the body that still had steam coming off them. I’ll never forget it,” said Moulton, on Friday. “Because public safety folks deal with this kind of thing all the time, there’s a certain misnomer that they’ve got to be tough and emotionless, that they just deal with it and move on. The simple reality is, that’s not true. … We want to keep our people healthy and carrying that stuff around is not healthy.”

It’s for that reason that Scarborough has launched what is described as a “first-in-the-nation pilot program” that hopes to help people prepare for disaster and its lingering aftereffects by using coping mechanisms first applied by a Portland psychologists to handicapped patients.

“The idea is to try to be more proactive with our folks,” explained Thurlow. “Robbie [Moulton] and I have struggled for years in public safety, because we deal with such a wide-range of employees – some who have seen 30 years who have seen just about everything there is to see to others who are 16-year-old kids who have never seen a dead body.”

“You never know what it is that’s going to traumatize someone,” said Thurlow. “So, this new program is designed to teach the skills of resiliency up front, so that people are more optimistic and have the support mechanisms they need. The idea is that if you teach people to be resilient up front, they are better able to handle adversity.”

The Maine Resilience project actually began in 2006 as a work of fiction. That’s when Dr. Ron Breazeale, a Portland clinical psychologist of more than 30 years, published a novel called “Reaching Home,” based on his experience growing up with a birth defect in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Breazeale has worn a prosthetic hook for most of his life.

“I didn’t really start out to write anything that would do anything other than entertain,” Breazeale said. “But when the executive director of Alpha One [Dennis Fitzgibbons] read the book, he said, you know, this is really about resilience.”

Funded in 1978, Alpha One bills itself as “The Center for Independent Living,” based on its mission to help the handicapped live full and rewarding lives. At Fitzgibbons’ urging, and with Alpha One’s support, Breazeale founded Maine Resilience, using his novel as a foundation for teaching folks the adaptive skills they need, on an emotional level, to overcome adversity. The result was a 2009 book, “Duct Tape Isn’t Enough: Survival Skills for the 21st Century.”

“We created Maine Resilience first for folks with disabilities, the idea being that people with disabilities know a lot more about resilience since they have to live in our society and survive,” Breazeale said.

That work with the handicapped has now blossomed into the program Thurlow and Moulton are taking advantage of.

Earlier this year, Alpha One received a two-year, $25,000 grant from the Maine Emergency Management Agency, through the federal Department of Homeland Security, to pilot the Maine Resilience project with the town of Scarborough.

“It’s not a lot of money,” jokes Breazeale, “but I think we can do something with it.”

Having already completed Phase I of the program last fall by conducting a “table top” disaster simulation with Scarborough town, safety and school officials, Breazeale will begin Phase II in April, when he conducts a 10-hour “train the trainer” program.

The idea, says Breazeale, is to teach people through a series of stories how to prepare for a crisis, and to rebound from the crisis once it happens, using the same emotional coping mechanisms long employed by the handicapped in everyday life.

“We’ve got into a real victim-based mentality in this society, thinking that someone is going to come save us, and that is not necessarily how it works, especially in a disaster,” Breazeale said.

By learning what he calls “the Eleven Skills And Attitudes That Can Increase Resilience,” Breazeale said people can more easily face the unknown, and deal with all kinds of post-traumatic stress.

The seminar will conclude with another table-top disaster simulation. Participants would then be expected to take what they learn from the course and share it with others in the community, whether it’s their church, civic club, neighborhood watch group, or even the weekly bridge game.

“What we want to do is teach all segments of the community to deal with these types of issues,” Breazeale said, “whether they are tasked with helping others, or just trying to take care of themselves.

A CLOSER LOOK

Learn more about the Building Resiliency program online at maineresilience.org, or by visiting the Scarborough Public Library at www.library.scarborough.me.us/resiliency.

A CLOSER LOOK

Dr. Ron Breazeale’s 11 Attitudes that can increase Resiliance.

1. Be connected to others.
2. Be flexible.
3. Be able to make realistic plans and take action to carry them out.
4. Be able to communicate well with others.
5. Be able to manage strong feelings.
6. Be self-confident.
7. Be able to find purpose and meaning.
8. Be able to see the big picture.
9. Be able to appreciate and use humor appropriately.
10. Be able to take care of yourself.
11. Be able to care for others physically and emotionally.