Hometown Helena Thursday, January 26th:
- Impact MT – working with military, veterans and first responders on physical and mental therapies.
- Volunteers of America (VOA) – Patrick is the Moral Injury Coordinator. It is a new program that provides support to people who have PTSD-like symptoms. It is more about dealing with the things they saw or did that went against their morals or ethics while in the military.
- MT Joining Community Forces – assistance to veterans, funds for work, housing, life etc.
Watch today's Hometown Recording courtesy of Pinion:
Message from our host Jim Smith:
January 24, 2023
Greetings Everyone,
Almost imperceptibly, the dawn comes a bit earlier, and each day lasts a little bit longer. The celestial bodies continue their ancient revolutions and rotations regardless of wind or weather. Winter is relaxing its grip on Montana, although I hear we are going to have another icy blast later this week.
I trust everyone had a great time touring the new Shodair Hospital last week. A big Hometown ‘Thanks’ to Craig, Keith, Alana, and their colleagues at Shodair, plus the folks from SMA Architects, Dick Anderson Construction and everyone involved in this wonderful undertaking. I’m hoping people this week will be willing to share a few thoughts or reflections on our visit to Shodair last week. So, ‘heads up.’ Please give it some thought. I’ll ask Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, we have another important, provocative program lined up this week (see below). It’s my layman’s impression that we are just beginning to understand the toll that near-constant stress takes on soldiers, law enforcement officers, first responders, including doctors, nurses, and others in dangerous and difficult occupations. These people pay a heavy price to be in their occupations, protecting and caring for the rest of us. It’s a price their spouses and families also pay. While I was with the Montana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association considerable time and energy was devoted to helping sheriffs, deputies, dispatchers, detention officers and everyone else in the office understand and deal successfully with the stress that comes with their occupation. As close as I could come to expressing it was something like this: 'their endocrine systems do not work like everyone else’s endocrine systems.’ A lot of this is physiological: what happens in and to your body when it is subjected to high intensity, stressful, sometimes life or death situations. Montana Sheriffs have continued to work on this. For example, Dr. Kevin Gilmartin, was the featured presenter at the annual convention a few years ago. His topic was titled: ‘Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement.’
In any case, we have an excellent program arranged for Thursday and we hope you can join Hometown Helena, either in person on the 6th floor of the Montana Club, or via the Zoom. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone and to our discussion.
Jim Smith
Jim(at)HometownHelena(dot)news
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