PRINTER'S NO. 1121
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE BILL
No.
963
Session of
2017
INTRODUCED BY DAVIS, BURNS, MILLARD, CALTAGIRONE, FREEMAN,
DRISCOLL, READSHAW, LONGIETTI, BIZZARRO, SOLOMON, McNEILL,
D. COSTA, BULLOCK, KINSEY, MACKENZIE, SCHLOSSBERG, RYAN,
NEILSON, V. BROWN, WARREN, WATSON, GOODMAN, HILL-EVANS, KORTZ
AND PASHINSKI, MARCH 27, 2017
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS, MARCH 27, 2017
AN ACT
Designating the month of September of each year as "Code Green:
First Responders Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month."
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Short title.
This act shall be known and may be cited as the Code Green
Month Designation Act.
Section 2. Legislative findings and declarations.
The General Assembly finds and declares as follows:
(1) First responders, including law enforcement
officers, firefighters and paramedics, routinely and
courageously confront risk.
(2) First responders draw on training and experience to
make sound decisions in the middle of a crime scene, four-
alarm fire or medical emergency and, when duty requires,
experience horrors, trauma and loss that few, if any, can
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imagine.
(3) For many years, the prevailing culture among first
responders has been stoicism, any trauma a first responder
had gone through was to be dealt with quietly, dealt with
alone and the first responder was expected to return to work.
(4) Thanks to efforts like The Code Green Campaign,
after many decades that culture is changing.
(5) The first responder community is learning that
emotional health, in addition to physical health, is critical
to readiness and that seeking support is a sign of strength
and not weakness.
(6) The Code Green Campaign was founded in March 2014 by
a group of emergency medical services (EMS) professionals who
had been growing increasingly concerned about the high rate
of suicide among fellow first responders and the lack of
discussion about mental health in general in the profession.
(7) The Code Green Campaign takes its name from both the
color of the mental health awareness ribbon and from the
"code alerts" that EMS uses to designate an emergency
patient, and by using the symbol of a code green, the idea is
that first responders are calling a code alert on their own
mental health.
(8) The mission of The Code Green Campaign is to first
bring awareness to the high rates of mental health issues
among first responders and reduce them, then to eliminate the
stigma that prevents people from admitting these issues exist
and asking for help and also to educate first responders on
self and peer care and finally to lobby for systemic change
in how mental health issues are addressed by first responder
agencies.
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(9) The campaign raises awareness by giving first
responders an outlet to tell individual stories of mental
health issues anonymously and republishing those stories so
the stories can be viewed by everyone.
(10) It also allows those who do not have first-hand
experience with mental health issues to see that mental
health issues can affect anyone, which will hopefully
decrease the stigma.
(11) In the future, The Code Green Campaign hopes to be
able to provide education to first responders, agencies and
communities.
(12) More information and additional resources about The
Code Green Campaign, suicide prevention and suicide awareness
can be found at www.CodeGreenCampaign.org.
Section 3. Code Green Month.
(a) Designation.--The month of September of each year is
designated as "Code Green: First Responders Suicide Prevention
and Awareness Month."
(b) Proclamation.--The Governor shall issue annually a
proclamation calling for observation of "Code Green: First
Responders Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month," encouraging
first responders to take better care of themselves and urging
all residents to better understand the behavioral health issues
of first responders.
Section 4. Effective date.
This act shall take effect immediately.
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