Heroic book shares PTSD story

A NEW book aimed at helping children and families of first responders to understand the impacts of their parents’ jobs was released to the public this week.

The work called My Dad, My Hero was launched at Everybody Knows Books on Sunday afternoon, and is the result of two years of work by the book’s creative team at non-profit Code 9 Foundation.

Having served six years in the military and 24 years with Victoria Police, the organisation’s co-founder Rob Atkins said the book is about starting conversations with families about post-traumatic stress disorder in the first responder and emergency service communities.

“I’ve spent some time as an inpatient four times at a psychiatric facility, and the resources available there were predominantly about defence,” he said.

“Any literature that covered that area basically dealt with dad going away on deployment and coming home once.

“It didn’t cover dad going to work for eight hours, seeing carnage, then coming home and sitting down for dinner at 5pm day after day.

“Every spouse and member of the committee’s experiences have really melded the characters and what happens in the book.”

A children’s picture book, the work depicts the titular Dad character in various emergency services situations, signifying the stress of his work as a constant alarm bell ringing in his head.

My Dad, My Hero was developed with input from a handful of child psychologists.

Chrystie, Mr Atkins’ wife, is one of the committee members that oversaw the production of the book.

“It’s for undiagnosed first responders to recognise symptoms, it explains PTSD and mental injury in first responders to their kids, but it also shows them what they need to do to get better,” she said.

“The thing we’re trying to teach kids is the alarm isn’t something you can see but it really impacts your ability to function.”

As well as the Atkins, the self-published book was developed by Mark Thomas, Rachel Yeo, Kym Scherf, Sally-Anne McCormack, and Samantha Vella, with illustrations by Anastasia Beth.

The launch event featured Code 9 Foundation ambassador and former AFL umpire Ray Chamberlain as special guest.

Physical copies of the book can be found at Everybody Knows Books, otherwise the book can be purchased digitally via the Code 9 Foundation website through Amazon.