Out of 35 finalist cities, Huntington has been chosen as a champion city in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge. Monday, Oct. 29, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced from Detroit, Michigan, the nine winners of the Mayors Challenge, all winning $1 million.

“Washington still asleep at the wheel, cities are now driving the agenda across this country,” Bloomberg said in a live broadcast. “Cities are leading the way on climate change, cities are leading the way on gun balance, public health and so much more and not just the big cities. Today, cities and towns of all sizes have embraced the spirit of innovation, and they are leading the ways in which Washington will not.”

The past year, the city of Huntington had been implementing programs to help with compassion fatigue within the police and fire departments. During this “test and learn” phase of the Mayors Challenge, the top 35 cities received up to $100,000 and technical assistance to test their ideas, according to the press release.

Huntington City Manager Cathy Burns was the project coordinator for Huntington’s application for the Mayors Challenge. She said in a press release the growing number of cities overwhelmed by opioid overdoses has generated demand for a proven approach to addressing first responder compassion fatigue.

“While the opioid epidemic has exposed a lack of mental health resources for first responders, stress and fatigue from other events, such as hurricanes, fires, school shootings and terrorist attacks, also increase demand for solutions to protect the mental health of those who protect our communities,” Burns said in a press release. “This program has been developed from its inception as a replicable model that other cities across the country can use.”

Krishawna Harless, wellness coordinator for the Huntington Police and Fire departments, has been working on the competition for the past six months by finding what works best for the departments through focus groups.

“We sat down at the beginning and we did some focus groups to kind of see what their needs were and what we were lacking and where we could improve,” Harless said. “From that we began to build this program of looking at the physical and mental health of our first responders. Together we built ideas like mindfulness training, we do yoga in the departments now, we do fun things like cooking classes and pottery for the families. We also do training on mental health and important things like that. We have fun, but we look at some hard topics.”

Harless said the past six months have only scratched the surface. With the million dollar prize, HPD and HFD will be able to implement more compassion fatigue and mindfulness training programs.

“The last six months we have only scratched the surface, but we have built that trust and that relationship and got a lot of good ideas, so now we can really hit this hard and really expand,” Harless said.

John Nicholas, a lieutenant at the Huntington Fire Department, called the grant a “good thing” because he has dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder in the past due to his job at the fire department.

“The Bloomberg grant was something they tried to implement and a good thing that we got because, in my past, I deal with PTSD and I did go away to rehab for that,” Nicholas said. “It’s beat into us, ‘Suck it up buttercup, it’s part of your job.’ Times have changed, it affects people differently. In the past, when I couldn’t cope with it, I became a really bad alcoholic, so I basically was drinking myself to death just to cover everything up. Now, (I have) meditations, I pray a lot and have my own time to be at peace.”

One of the ways the city addressed compassion fatigue was through yoga classes at Huntington Police and Fire Departments.

“The yoga classes is stuff that we did when I was in rehab,” Nicholas said. “They are implementing that with HPD and HFD and it seems to be working. It relaxes the guys, but it costs money to have instructors come in and do everything.”

Other classes that the “test and learn” phase offered were cooking classes at Huntington Kitchen, massage therapy and art classes at the Huntington Museum of Art.

“The cooking classes just allow people to spend more time with their families,” Nicholas said. “It’s a husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend getaway to be able to be together and do things. (They offered) massages to keep everybody from being so tense (which was) another relaxing thing.”

Huntington joins Denver; Durham, North Carolina; Fort Collins, Colorado; Georgetown, Texas; Los Angeles; New Rochelle, New York; Philadelphia; and South Bend, Indiana, as winners of the 2018 U.S. Mayors Challenge.

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