Support Mental Health Care for Firefighters!

My name is Paul Walton, and I have been a firefighter for over 17 years. I am working with a team of firefighters and allies to establish Firefighters for Plant Medicine (FFPM), an organization dedicated to the health and wellbeing of firefighters and first responders. Certain plant medicines have been proven treatments for mental health symptoms, but often still inaccessible to firefighters and first responders because of exclusion from worker’s rights protections. We are passionate about dissolving the stigma of plant medicines and advocating for their safe medical use. As we await our nonprofit 501c3 status, we are asking for your help in getting the startup funding we need to start building our FFMP programs.

Advocating for the mental health of firefighters is a passion for us, but we alone cannot fund everything we need to get started. That is why we are asking for your generous help in giving first responders access to safe plant medicines to aid in their healing process.

Your contribution will help us build a community where firefighters and first responders can connect, share experiences, and support one another through peer discussions and therapeutic group activities. It will also allow us to begin our work educating firefighters, first responders, fire service departments and union leaders about the benefits of plant medicines and how plant medicine can help them overcome the emotional and physical toll of the work faced by first responders.

With your help, we can get one step closer to achieving our goals for better first responder mental health!

As a firefighter, I have witnessed and experienced firsthand the physical, emotional, and psychological toll that such roles can impose on individuals. Our work often involves exposure to traumatic events that can lead to work-related chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety, sleeping disorders, cancer, moral injury, and suicide. The traumatic events are just one aspect of the job; firefighters also endure many physical injuries over the course of a career, they are away from their families for many of life’s special moments, and the erratic schedule that causes sleep disorders also increases PTSD symptoms. This doesn’t include the damaging moral injury that can often occur. Symptoms from these mental injuries often makes normal life an everyday struggle for firefighters and first responders. These struggles affect the first responder, the family and the community. However, first responders are often that last to seek help due to stigmas surrounding mental health. We want to change that mindset and help with reaching dedicated public servants.

Over the past three years, I have been working on mental health for firefighters as I navigate and grow in my own mental health journey. I say journey because it doesn’t happen overnight and there is no magic pill. Numerous studies show that plant medicines can be a great tool and have profoundly positive effects on mental health. FFPM believes that career firefighters and first responders deserve better mental health support and better alternatives to prescription medications and alcohol. Plant medicine, combined with therapy and medical guidance, have shown great results in mental health improvements. Plant medicines could save a first responders life!

The funds will be used for startup logistics: PEER support training, mental health training and education classes, pickleball equipment and mtn bikes for our firefighter PEER support recreation activities so that we can start providing mental health services for our firefighters suffering from mental health challenges.

Thank you for supporting Firefighters for Plant Medicine!