Post-event Stresses
Effective coordination with the media and timely dissemination of information can help reduce media pressure on those who are the most vulnerable. Assistance with benefits and other administrative issues can reduce the burden on victims and families.
Help Employees Face Feared Places or Activities
Returning soon, if only briefly, to a feared site can help prevent lasting effects such as phobic responses. Having a friend or loved one along, or being supported by close work associates, may make the first step much easier.
Healing Value of Work
Getting back to work can be reassuring, and a sense of having a mission to perform can help the group recover its morale. But the return to work must be managed in a way that conveys appropriate respect for the deceased, the injured, and the traumatized.
The Critical Incident Stress Management Process
Formal crisis intervention processes for victims of critical incidents, such as workplace violence, have been used and recommended by mental health professionals for years. One such process, Critical Incident Stress Management, has been pioneered by Dr. Jeffrey Mitchell of the University of Maryland at Baltimore County.
Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) represents an integrated system of services and procedures whose purpose is to achieve several goals:
- Prevent traumatic stress,
- Mitigate traumatic stress,
- Intervene to assist recovery from traumatic stress,
- Accelerate recovery whenever possible,
- Restore to function, and
- Maintain employee health and welfare.
The CISM Team
A CISM team, generally comprised of mental health professionals and trained peer support personnel, provides a variety of services including:
- Defusings,
- Demobilizations after a disaster,
- Debriefings
- Informal discussions,
- Significant other support services,
- Individual consults (one-on-one), and
- Follow-up services.
In this course, we'll discuss two of the more commonly used CISM services:
- Debriefings, and
- Defusings
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
7-3. Which of the following represents an integrated system of services and procedures to intervene and assist recovery from traumatic stress?
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