Peer Support Team

According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), the traumatic stress that emergency workers are faced with everyday is rampant throughout the country. A publication, “Traumatic Incident Stress:  Information for Emergency Response Workers, created by NIOSH states that traumatic incidents can produce unusually strong emotional reactions that may interfere with the ability to function at a scene or later.  Horry County Fire Rescue recognized the challenges that our emergency workers faced and implemented the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) to assist, at these times.

Horry County Fire Rescue’s CIT was created in 2008 to support our staff with critical stress defusing and intervene in order to mitigate the effects of accute stress, following major incidents, on our members. Our procedures for activation to calls can be found under the Department’s website policy link SOP 619. This policy gives detailed information on when to activate the CIT and what specific information is needed to pursue further, more specialized care.