WC3 Chaplains Recognized

International Fellowship of Chaplains
By Curt Beaupre, Homeland Security Coordinator, Pierce County Emergency Management, April 22, 2009

If you worked in the Disaster Recovery Center (DRC) at the South Hill Mall during February of 2009, chances are you met several members from the International Fellowship of Chaplains (IFOC).

As many of you know, my family suffered the loss of a young child who drowned in November of 2008. It is from this tragic loss that I came to know several chaplains from the IFOC. Unless you have a background working as an emergency responder you may not fully understand the role and services that they can provide.

Chaplains are trained to care for the needs of a person or family who was involved in a traumatic and often times unexpected crisis situation. They are trained to minister and counsel people in critical incident grief, trauma, recovery, and to provide short term spiritual ministry in crisis situations. Chaplains are often called upon to assist emergency service workers such as the police, fire departments and search & rescue organizations. Chaplains can also assist emergency workers in stress management, critical stress debriefings and educate them on post traumatic stress.

Initially, there was some uncertainty on the part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) about having chaplains working in a DRC. However, over the duration of the DRC, the chaplains played a big part in comforting victims in need and allaying their fears. FEMA representatives brought a number of very distraught citizens directly to the chaplains’ table before beginning to process them. Many of us observed firsthand that the chaplains are very gifted and compassionate in dealing with people in crisis situations. At the DRC the chaplains were able to calm, relax and make the experience a very non-threatening and friendly place
for people to visit. We even had some out-of-county people stop by to talk with the chaplains at the DRC.

The IFOC is a nationally certified non-profit volunteer organization. Every chaplain is Incident Command System (ICS) trained and members are available 24/7 to assist emergency responders and citizens in Pierce and King County.

For additional information please feel free to contact Major Paul "Red" Wilson at 253-279-5763 or Chaplain Barbie Warren at 253-905-8313.