LSF Health Systems

LSF is proud to partner with the 2nd Alarm Project to provide trainings for the First Responder Community. This training is offered by Dr. Kellie O'Dare, PhD, and Lance Butler, Engineer and NW Region Peer Team Coordinator.

We hope you will join us! We ask participants to have cameras on. This is an interactive training; please come prepared to participate!

A Zoom link will be sent 48 hours prior to the training. Please e-mail Robert Hersey at robert.hersey@lsfnet.org with any questions.

About "Building a Behavioral Health Access Program":

A Behavioral Health Access Program, or a BHAP for short, is a comprehensive and operationalized plan which clearly specifies the mental health services first responders and their families may need, where those services are available within their communities, and levels and standards of care that are expected from these services. Its purpose is to ensure education, support, assessment, and intervention for members who may be affected by behavioral health issues. The BHAP has been recognized by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation as a best practice and is becoming a world standard of behavioral healthcare for first responders. This training will provide guidance on building department based BHAPs for first responders and their families.

About Dr. Kellie O'Dare, PhD:

Dr. Kellie O’Dare is a faculty member at Florida A & M University and the Founder/Director of the 2nd Alarm Project. Dr. O’Dare has actively worked with Florida based first responder agencies to conduct needs assessments, provide capacity building for peer support teams, and develop BHAP programs. She has conducted mental health training with over 1,000 first responders, family members, and leadership teams and functioned as a behavioral health navigator and clinical advisor to peer support teams. She has also served on local and statewide critical incident activations and deployments, including being embedded with Florida Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Task Force 7 at Surfside, FL in July 2021. While deployed to Surfside, Dr O’Dare and colleagues developed the first statewide plan for first responder mental health services post disaster deployment. She has earned well in excess of 100 hours of continuing education in first responder behavioral health and substance use. She currently has several peer reviewed manuscripts on developing comprehensive resiliency and BHAP programs. She frequently provides consultation and technical assistance to first responder organizations across the country on best practices in building mental wellness programs. Dr. O’Dare also serves as a subject matter expert and non-voting member of the Florida First Responder Suicide Deterrence Task Force.

Dr. O’Dare is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management with the Institute of Public Health at Florida A&M University. She holds a Ph.D. in Social Work from Florida State University, where she also earned both Master of Social Work (MSW) and Master in Public Administration (MPA) degrees. She is an active researcher with over 50 publications, technical reports, and conference presentations, and has significant experience conceptualizing, designing, implementing, and evaluating large scale quantitative, geospatial, and mixed method research projects in both academic and applied settings.

Dr. O’Dare has meaningful personal linkages to the first responder culture. She is the niece of Shawn T. O’Dare, firefighter/paramedic killed in the Line of Duty in Miami-Dade County, and the spouse of a current professional Florida panhandle firefighter/paramedic.

About Lance Butler, Engineer and NW Peer Team Coordinator:

Lance is an Engineer/Paramedic with the Tallahassee Fire Department (TFD) and the He has been with TFD since January 2015, and has been in the fire service since 2007. He is also a member of the Tallahassee Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Response team. Lance has been the leader of TFD’s Peer Support team since its inception in September of 2019 and is now working with the 2nd Alarm Project to bring awareness of mental health issues and resiliency among first responders to TFD as well as surrounding first responder agencies. He also serves as the NW Regional Coordinator for the FL Firefighters Safety and Health Collaborative Statewide Peer Team. Lance has served on several significant statewide Peer Team deployments, including responding to the NAS Pensacola shooting, Bay County Wildfires, Hurricane Ian, as well as multiple local agency critical incident response efforts.