Assisting Individuals in Crisis & Group Crisis Intervention

This 3-day course combines ALL of the content of ICISF’s Assisting Individuals in Crisis & Group Crisis Intervention courses.

Crisis Intervention is NOT psychotherapy; rather, it is a specialized acute emergency mental health intervention which requires specialized training. As physical first aid is to surgery, crisis intervention is to psychotherapy. Thus, crisis intervention is sometimes called “emotional first aid”. Designed to present the core elements of a comprehensive, systematic and multi-component crisis intervention curriculum, this course will prepare participants to understand a wide range of crisis intervention services for both the individual and for groups. Fundamentals of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) will be outlined and participants will leave with the knowledge and tools to provide several group crisis interventions, specifically demobilizations, defusings and the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD). The need for appropriate follow-up services and referrals when necessary will also be discussed.

This course is designed for anyone in the fields of Business & Industry Crisis Intervention, Disaster Response, Education, Emergency Services, Employee Assistance, Healthcare, Homeland Security, Mental Health, Military, Spiritual Care, and Traumatic Stress.

Learning Objectives:

• Psychological crisis and psychological crisis intervention
• Resistance, resiliency, recovery continuum
• Critical incident stress management
• Evidence-based practice
• Basic crisis communication techniques
• Common psychological and behavioral crisis reactions
• Putative and empirically-derived mechanisms
• SAFER-Revised model
• Suicide intervention
• Relevant research findings
• Large group crisis interventions
• Small group crisis interventions
• Adverse outcome associated with crisis intervention
• Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD)

Testimonials

"Dennis did a great job of mixing the objective with the subjectivity of his experience. As a fellow mental health professional, I admire the way he's able to portray these issues for first responders. He made me more heavily consider my role during and post- crises, and I felt the training did a great job of explaining how important being competent in your particular part is."

"Dennis provided his expertise of the years of first-hand experience on the subject. Video presentations were very helpful as modeled practice for us to see and discuss."

"I am thrilled to have had Dennis Potter as my trainer. I was able to spend 3 full days with a "master" in the field of crisis management. He took a voluminous amount of material, at first glance was intimidating, but delivered it with humor and precision. I am confident I now have the knowledge and skills to support others during a crisis."