Lionel Crowther and Steve Farina (Courageous Leadership, Firefighter Families and Mental Health) - Episode 1066

Behind The Shield

James Geering

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Fitness

4.9 • 667 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lionel Crowther is a 27 year veteran of the fire service, LODD survivor and mental health advocate. Steve Farina is a 30 year fire service veteran, a VP for the BC Professional Firefighters Association and is the vice-chair of the BCPFFA’s Mental Health Committee, as well as their Occupational Health & Safety Committee.

In this second conversation, we discuss firefighter survival, courage in leadership, the recruitment crisis, firefighter families, sphere of influence and so much more.

Lionel has been blessed to be a Fire Fighter for the last 27 years and now promoted to the rank of Captain with the Winnipeg Fire Department.

Lionel is a Master Instructor for the IAFF Fire Ground Survival Program, Master Instructor for the Petzl EXO Escape System, IAFF Burn Foundation Coordinator, Trainer & Peer Supporter for Burn Survivor Fire Fighters & families, graduate of the West Point Sciences of Behavior Program through the LAFD Leadership Academy, sleep educator for the 62Romeo program with Seal Team 7 member Robert Sweetman, and recently appointed to the UL Fire Safety Research Institute on the Training Advisory Board.

Steve began his firefighting journey in 1992 as a paid-on-call firefighter with the Township of Langley Fire Department. In 1997, he transitioned to a full-time role with Coquitlam Fire Rescue. After steadily advancing through the ranks, he was promoted to Captain in 2015 and currently serves in the Fire Suppression Division on Engine 1.

Steve has been deeply involved in union leadership, serving as the OHS rep on the Union Executive of IAFF Local 1782 (Coquitlam Firefighters) from 2005 to 2023. In 2016, he was elected Vice President of the BC Professional Fire Fighter Association (BCPFFA) and, in 2023, became the Executive Vice President. In these roles, he represents 56 IAFF Affiliate Locals and more than 4,500 professional firefighters across British Columbia.

His dedication extends to health and safety initiatives. Steve is the vice chair of the BCPFFA's Health and Safety Committee and Mental Health Committee. He is also a member of Coquitlam Fire Rescue’s Critical Incident Stress and Peer Support teams. Passionate about mental health advocacy, Steve has travelled across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick to train healthcare professionals on fire service culture. Additionally, he represents the BCPFFA on BC’s First Responder Mental Health Steering Committee, chaired by WorkSafeBC.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is sponsored by Team Builder, yet another company that's doing great things for the first responder community.
0:07.0	As a strength and conditioning coach myself who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination of wellness information is one of the biggest challenges.
0:16.0	Now, TeamBuilder is the premier strength strength conditioning software for tactical athletes.
0:23.8	And there are several features that really impress me.
0:29.7	Firstly, there is a full exercise library so you, the personal trainer, does not have to create that within your own department.
0:32.1	Secondly, you can send out programming, but also individualize, which I love.
0:37.1	So you blanket program for everyone.
0:39.4	Now you can tweak based on someone's injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body composition,
0:45.0	rather than having to write a program for every single person on their own.
0:49.6	TeamBuilder also allows you to build custom questionnaires to collate health and wellness data. It integrates
0:55.7	with wearables. And I think one of the most important things is obviously it tracks. To me,
1:01.3	it's imperative that we as a profession start tracking our people from day one and then over the full
1:08.6	span of their career, therefore catching potential wellness issues and injuries before they happen.
1:16.0	Now, if you want to try TeamBuilder, they are offering you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, a free 14-day trial to experience all of the features.
1:26.5	And if you want to take a deeper dive into Team Builder,
1:29.1	listen to episode 132 with Melissa Macardo or go to team builder.com. And I'll spell that to you
1:37.3	because it's not as you think. T-E-A-M-B-U-I-L-D-R.com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name's James Gearing, and this week it
1:48.1	is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Lionel Crowther and Steve Farina.
1:54.3	Now, both Lionel and Steve have done so much for our fire service and their home in the
2:00.4	Canadian fire service.
2:02.2	Lionel was my guest with his wife, Joanna, on episode 215, and then Steve came on on episode
2:08.1	661. In this conversation today, they came on together, and we had one of the most raw
	...

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