Richard Baker, MA, LCMHC-S

Rick Baker, has been providing evidence-based behavioral health services to first responders and responder agencies in North Carolina since 2007. He is the current Clinical Director of the Western North Carolina Peer Support Network, overseeing a team of nearly 500 trained peers (from all disciplines) providing oversight of and post-critical incident services to first responders in North Carolina’s 22 westernmost counties. Rick is one of only 3 clinicians the US Department of the Interior and US Department of Agriculture contract with to provide post-critical incident care to the nation’s approximately 60,000 wildland firefighters and wildland law enforcement personnel throughout the nation and the Caribbean. He’s a researcher on first responder suicide and has lectured nationally and locally on that topic and many others.
In 2017, he founded Responder Support Services, Inc. (RSS), to provide a broad range of clinical and non-clinical services to first responders, responder agencies, county/local governments, and the federal government. Rick created the ‘outpatient model’ for Embedded Behavioral Healthcare in civilian emergency services. Rick is also fully credentialed with the 9/11 World Trade Center Health Program and provides care to a number of 9/11 first responders. In 2018, Rick participated in a 1 year train-the-trainer program at Emory University School of Medicine on Prolonged Exposure therapy, the gold standard treatment for PTSD in first responders and military veterans. Most recently, in 2023, Rick was a contributing author on an academic book, First Responder Mental Health: A clinician’s guide (Springer Publishing). Rick and RSS are participating with two different groups in the US and Europe to launch clinical trials on new treatments for PTSD in first responder populations.
Financial relationships
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Nature of financial relationship:There are no financial relationships to disclose.Date added:03/17/2025Date updated:03/17/2025