(Radio Iowa) – Several hundred firefighters, law enforcement officers, E-M-S crews and other first responders from all across the nation will be gathering in Iowa City later this week for a conference designed to decrease their levels of stress and burnout. Dan Clay, dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Education, says the four-day event is called the 2026 Mental Wellness Symposium, hosted by the U-I and the First Responder Center for Excellence.
“What this conference does is it helps first responders identify healthy habits and resilience building,” Clay says. “One of the most important things for first responders is really good sleep and good nutrition, and sometimes we overlook what is an important foundation for wellness and mental health.” Clay says the goal is to help emergency workers use evidence-based strategies as tools to navigate the challenges of the job and to protect their long-term well-being.
“We’ll focus on things like sleep and good nutrition, but also helping them to identify, when I’m having stress, is that normal stress?” Clay says. “Is this more stress than normal? Is it interfering with my ability to live my life successfully and happily? And if that happens, where, when, and how do I get some help?” First responders identify themselves as helpers and sometimes they think helpers shouldn’t need to seek help themselves to cope, which Clay says is a common mistake.
“The reality is that these folks are exposed to repeated and chronic stressors oftentimes in those jobs, and they’re human, just like everybody else,” he says, “and so I do think there’s a certain level of stigma associated with seeking help if you’re a help provider yourself, but this conference is really aimed to try to help overcome that.” The conference will run May 31st through June 3rd at the U-I’s Iowa Memorial Union.
