Trauma: It is inevitable

Critical incidents can include:

• Death a colleague due to natural causes, suicide or homicide
• Large scale layoffs
• Natural disaster: Weather event
• Manmade disaster: Mass casualty event
• Reaction to volatile events linked to politics or racism

Having a rapid Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) response can help your company or organization manage associated risks more effectively and inexpensively. CISM interventions can:

• Help reduce job stress and burnout
• Promote employee wellness
• Raise awareness of PTSD

Critical Incident Stress Management Interventions

Several types of interventions send the message to your workers that they are supported, there is education and there are resources for continuing care. It comes in four forms:

• Psychological first aid is used in one-on-one meetings to provide immediate, innovative and flexible help
• Group diffusing is a short group intervention done shortly after an incident. Multiple interventions are adapted to meet the needs of diverse organizational cultures and workers facing myriad challenges.
• Critical incident stress debriefing: This group intervention is used as a follow-up (if needed) to the group diffusing. This acts to get a sense of where people are weeks after the crisis.
• Crisis management briefing: This is a large, homogeneous group intervention used before, during and after the crisis to present facts, and facilitate a brief, controlled discussion to include stress survival skills

Meeting the needs of your employee group

This is not a “one size fits all” service. Guided by my extensive training, which has been fortified by certification in trauma response by Johns Hopkins, I have provided successful interventions to first responders, federal agencies, companies, hospital workers and first responders that are designed to:

• Provide education on stress reactions and symptoms
• Enhance resiliency and build coping skills
• Promote team cohesion
• Offer referral sources for further help
• Normalize stress response and mitigate traumatic reactions