Charlie Popp - FF (Ret.) First Responder Clinician

Charlie's work in Critical Incident Stress Management began around the time of its inception, he then started on the Boston fire metro team in 1998, he has provided CISM and peer support throughout the northeast united states, and he is currently the co-coordinator of the statewide peer support network here in the commonwealth.   In this episode - Charlie speaks openly about mistakes he made throughout his career in the fire service – including the amount of hours that he worked for years on end – he shared this message and many others in order to help the next generation of first responders avoid some of the mistakes in their careers that he made in his own. Additionally – Charlie spoke about some of his own critical incidents – he spoke about structure fires, including one that resulted in a fatality early on in his career – the cultural response to that in those days, which was to drink until you felt better – he spoke openly about how those incidents affected him, how something inside him demanded that there must be a better way to manage critical incident stress – and how as the years went on Charlie came to realize that it is oftentimes the constant grind of duty, response, responsibility, and how we respond internally to those and other components of the job that takes the largest toll on our emergency responders.Currently - Charlie works as a clinician at On Site Academy – an organization we hold in the highest regard – and consider as the gold standard of treatment for first responders.