Liz Bartholomew - First Responder Family Member & Advocate

Elizabeth Bartholomew joins us on the podcast. Liz worked as a police records clerk in Batavia Illinois  where she met Joe Bartholomew, a paid on-call firefighter, they married in 1980.  Joe was hired as a full time Firefighter in 1986.  While their daughters were young Liz was able to be a stay at home mom.  Later she drove a school bus part-time in Naperville, Illinois, became Band Booster President and was on the coaching staff at East Aurora High School.    In 2005 Joe was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder from a response call, he later retired on a duty disability pension after 33 years as a firefighter.  Seeing the reaction in the workplace to his PTSD diagnosis and watching him learn to live with PTSD she came up with the concept of Responders Retreat as a place to open a conversation and know that you are not alone.