The "Invisible Wounds" conference in Walkerton helped raise awareness of PTSD and many of the other traumatic challenges for first responders.
Among the keynote speakers Wednesday was a retired fire chief, Andy MacDonald. He talked about resiliency and training.
"Everyone has resilience at some level and it can be enhanced and fostered and taught," he said. "So we need to prepare people before they get on the job and acknowledge that it can be stressful, teach them the health and lifestyle skills that will make them more resilient. And make it part of our public culture."
MacDonald pointed to the the example of the Invictus Games to show how serious Canada is becoming about PTSD.
"One of the big things that we have seen in culture in Canada over the past couple years was the Invictus Games, and the acknowledgement that the athletes suffering from PTSD compete beside athletes who had lost a limb in battle and treated equally because PTSD is an injury," said Van Niekerk.
Former police officer and current Anglican priest Michael Clarke talked about building safe communities as a vital part of healing.
"Myself and a retired fire chief, and another retired detective, started a PSTD peer support group for first responders. We have been running that for a year and that the whole concept of building safe and healthy community has been a vital part of healing of a lot of those guys," said Clarke.
He also noted that while working with troubled street youth he learned about their moral trauma and how spiritual healing helped in the recovery process.
Former firefighter and founder of "After the Call" Nick Halmsley says any approach for recovery is taken through a clinical lens.
"Any approach currently that you take is always been informed by the therapeutic in research side so any of the programs that are in are to mar critical instance stress, equine therapy, emotional support dog, peer support all seen through the clinical lens because it worked there first," said Halmsley.
Halmsley added treating issues such as anxiety, depression and addictions are separate from PTSD.
"I think we should take and make everything important through the whole gambit. So anxiety, depression, addictions and marital issues are all of that stuff that is to often grouped under PTSD, but it's actually separate."
Surviving a traumatic event can have an effect on the mind as well as the body.
One woman shared her story about surviving a fire.
Anne Pickering talked about the house fire she was involved in and the mindfulness meditation and psychotherapy she used to minimize the fire's effect.
"It was more the unravelling, the story of what happened and sort of picking up the pieces after the fact. So I did struggle quite a bit with anxiety and depression as well as some symptoms related to post traumatic stress," said Pickering.
The Invisible Wounds conference in Walkerton was set up in part for first responders to talk about mental health, trauma and PTSD.