The Phoenix Fire Department used to have a slogan on the back of all fire apparatus: “Our family helping yours.”
They meant it, too. When PFD Assistant Chief Jeff Schripsema discovered a massive malignant tumor on his shoulder that required surgery, crews immediately jumped into action to support their fellow member and his family: “When our members are in need of help, we rise to a level that is almost overwhelming,” Schripsema explained.
In Phoenix, member support is built into the department’s identity. From check-in calls and periodic house visits to organizing meal trains and offering childcare alternatives, the PFD has operationalized fire service camaraderie.
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“We look at ourselves as a family; we are all brothers and sisters, not just in the way we respond to the public, but in the way we help each other,” Schripsema explained. “That’s led by the fire chief, by the union president and it’s incorporated into every aspect of our organization and what we do.”
Wellness as a strategy
Member resilience is not a PFD add-on priority to the larger mission, Schripsema explained: “We have a strategic plan that is a labor-management agreement, and the number one priority of that strategic plan is the health, wellness and safety of our firefighters.”.
The plan includes a labor-management co-chair placement on various department committees to ensure operational support across the organization.
“New fire station designs, purchasing of apparatus, uniforms — whatever it might be, we work collaboratively,” he added. “We’re very much in partnership with each other, which strengthens that bond and creates the family environment.”
That collaboration does require open communication between rank-and-file members and department leadership, which, in Schripsema’s opinion, is the only way to run a station.
“[Leaders] are still firefighters, and even though I’m an assistant chief, I can be in a fire station to hug a brother or a sister I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said. “We sit down, we talk, we have real conversations. We have our individual roles as labor or management, but at the end of the day, we come together.”
No member is on a ‘journey by themselves’
From a culture perspective, wellness leads the way in Phoenix. No issue, whether it affects the responder directly or a member of their family, is too small for support.
“We rally in an organized way,” Schripsema said. “They’ll ask, ‘Do you need childcare? Do you need somebody to take care of your landscape or your pool? Do you have bills that need to be taken care of? Do you need somebody to run your kids to and from school? Do you need meals?’”
That “everything, everywhere, all at once” approach to support ensures no one slips through the cracks without being offered a hand up or a shoulder to lean on.
“The one thing we do so well is the membership never feels like they’re on a journey by themselves,” Schripsema said. “If it’s a substance abuse problem, if you’re having marital issues, if you have smoking issues and you need a cessation program, if you need counseling — whatever it is, we’re here for you, we probably have a program for it and we have the ability to connect you to the right people.”
‘This is the best of us’
Schripsema knows firsthand what it means to see the fire service brotherhood and sisterhood in action. Early in his career, before his cancer diagnosis, his now ex-wife was in critical condition after an out-of-town accident in Seattle. Within half an hour of alerting his department, the next four months of his shift were covered — no sick days or vacation time required.
The department also organized members to wait with Schripsema’s daughter until her grandparents arrived, as well as delivering meals and helping maintain his yard and home while he was at his ex-wife’s side.
And the Seattle Fire Department, which has a station on site at the hospital, offered Schripsema a room and let him know “there will always be a plate at this table for dinner.” In a show of solidarity, the department also posted a firefighter outside her room in the ICU.
The avalanche of support, grace and true familial love still stuns him.
“It was unbelievable to me,” Schripsema reflected. “I could never pay everybody back for what they did during that time. All I could do was pay it forward. But that’s what we do, right?”
The fire family is everywhere
In many workplaces, “family” is just a corporate buzzword. In the fire service, it’s real — and the family’s tree branches don’t stop at the station door. It’s an industry-wide family, as far as Schripsema is concerned.
“Over the years, I’ve had guys knock on the door and say, ‘Hey, I’m a firefighter from so-and-so, I’ve got a flat tire and don’t know what to do,’” Schripsema said. “And we say, ‘Come on in, let’s get your family fed, get you out of the weather and let’s figure this out.’”
That’s a family — the people who show up when you need them.
“You’re never truly alone,” Schripsema said. “You can walk into almost any fire station anywhere and somebody’s going to be there to support you, to help you or at least get you connected in the right direction.”
All you have to do is ask.
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