Groundbreaking: San Francisco & Petaluma Fire Departments Lead the Way in Trauma Risk Management Training
By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer, FSPA Fire Service Leader Member
On April 9-11, 2025, the Fire Service Psychology Association (FSPA) marked a pivotal moment in fire service behavioral health by delivering its first Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) training to members of the San Francisco and Petaluma Fire Departments.
This peer-driven model equips firefighters with the tools to identify colleagues at risk following traumatic events and ensure timely, supportive interventions—enhancing resilience and reducing long-term psychological impact.
The San Francisco FD hosted the event where FSPA’s Board Chair, Dr. Kristen Wheldon, Psy.D, and Dr. Wayne Boucher, Psy.D, Chief of Psychological Services, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, delivered the TRiM training to twenty members of the two departments. TRiM is a peer support system that employs structured risk assessment screenings to identify individuals who are most vulnerable to developing issues following potentially traumatic events.
TRiM is not a type of counseling, therapy, or psychological debriefing. Instead, it can be a useful tool for fire department peer support teams that facilitates the early detection of those individuals who may require professional support (using peers), encouraging timely and appropriate clinical referrals (when necessary) to prevent negative outcomes.
Three-Day Delivery
The three-day program provided a hands-on learning experience, blending foundational behavioral health principles with practical application of the TRiM assessment tool. Participants built essential skills in active listening, crisis de-escalation, and trauma response through guided exercises and role-playing scenarios.
With those foundational skills covered, the next two days of training covered the components of TRiM and the methodology for properly using this new approach to the assessment of an individual’s response to a traumatic event. Included in this phase of the training was the opportunity for participants to engage in role-playing using the TRiM assessment tool.
The San Francisco and Petaluma Fire Departments stand at the forefront of fire service mental health, pioneering the use of TRiM as a proactive peer-support strategy. Their leadership underscores a commitment to protecting the psychological well-being of their members.
We also want to acknowledge the work of Dr. Alyson K. Zalta, Psy.D, Associate Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine, specializing in trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), resilience, and treatment interventions. At UC-Irvine, she leads the Trauma & Resilience Lab, which focuses on understanding risk and resilience factors in trauma-related psychopathology and developing scalable interventions.
As TRiM gains traction in the fire service, ongoing research by experts like Dr. Zalta at UC Irvine provides valuable insights into its effectiveness. Her team’s work in the Trauma & Resilience Lab continues to shape best practices for empowering peer supporters in high-stress environments.
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