Hello everyone! Whitney and I are back again this week with episode 13 of Within the Trenches. A few episodes back we spoke with Cheryl of Yakima, Washington and she was not only a dispatcher but she is part of her centers critical incident stress management (CISM) team. It was an interesting and informative show and since it went so well, we wanted to bring this week's guest on to add to the topic of CISM. This week we spoke with Matt, operations manager of the communications center in Kent County. It's one of our larger areas in western Michigan and he reflected on one of his first emergencies while attending an explorers program as a teenager with a local fire department. He also touched on the importance of CISM and we spoke briefly on a call he helped us out with when we were dealing with a loss of our own.

A big thanks goes out to Kent County for allowing us the opportunity to have Matt on the show and to Matt; thank you for everything you do! It's appreciated more than you know. As always you can email us at [email protected] or you can click the black contact button on the left of this page. Thanks and make sure to listen, share and comment!