Courses

Course Description:
Designed to provide participants with the latest information on critical incident stress management techniques and post-trauma syndromes, the Advanced Group Crisis Intervention builds on the knowledge base which was obtained through the Group Crisis Intervention workshop and/or in publications. At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will have been exposed to specific, proven strategies to intervene with those suffering the ill effects of their exposure to trauma. Emphasis will be on advanced defusings and debriefings in complex situations.

Program Highlights:

• Relevant research findings
• Managing complex group oriented crisis interventions
• Nature and importance of incident assessment
• Strategic intervention planning
• Comprehensive, integrated, systematic and multi-component CISM
• Concepts of enhanced group processes
• Significantly delayed interventions
• Multiple incident CISD
• Suicide of a colleague
• Small group crisis support sessions after a disaster

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This workshop is designed for EAP, human resources and public safety personnel, mental health professionals, chaplains, emergency medical services providers, firefighters, physicians, police officers, nurses, dispatchers, airline personnel and disaster workers who are already trained in the critical incident stress debriefing format. It will also be useful for those working extensively with traumatized victims for various walks of life.

Prerequisites: Group Crisis Intervention is a prerequisite.

Course Description:
Crisis Intervention is NOT Psychotherapy; rather, it is a specialized acute emergency mental health intervention which requires specialized training. This program is the second in a two course series entitled Assisting Individuals in Crisis Intervention. The program is designed to teach crisis interventions it applies to assisting individuals in crisis, one person at a time. It does not teach group crisis intervention; although some of the skill sets contained herein are certainly applicable to group intervention. This program will teach advanced scenario-based crisis intervention techniques based upon an understanding of the basic crisis intervention concepts, principles, and tactics taught in the first assisting individuals in crisis program.

Course Highlights:

• Natures & definitions of a psychological crisis and psychological crisis intervention
• Nature and definition of critical incident stress management and its role as a continuum of care
• Empathic communication techniques
• Practice of psychological triage
• SAFER-Revised model of individual psychological crisis intervention in s suicide scenario
• SAFER-Revised model of individual psychological crisis intervention in a “follow-up” or Referral scenario
• Risks of iatrogenic “harm” associated with psychological crisis intervention and will further Discuss how to reduce those risks
• Principles of self-care

*Prerequisite: Assisting Individuals in Crisis (also known as Individual Crisis Intervention and Peer Support)

Course Description:
ASAP is a powerful Critical Incident Stress Management intervention (CISM) to assist persons who are victims of violence and/or who witness violence happening to others. ASAP helps these victims to cope with the psychological aftermath of such incidents by utilizing individual, group, support group, and family victim outreach crisis intervention procedures and private referrals, where indicated. This course is especially helpful for those organizations that may be experiencing recurring violence and/or witnessing violence, such as

• emergency services;
• health care facilities;
• schools;
• police/corrections;
• social service agencies;
• federal, state, and local governmental agencies;
• corporate/industrial organizations;
• medical examiner’s office;

and similar settings where an in-house response is more clinically efficacious and cost-effective than hiring outside consultants. ASAP has been shown to provide needed support to victims, to lower the frequency of violent acts, and to reduce many of the organizational costs associated with violent acts. ASAP is the most widely researched crisis intervention program in the world. Dr. Flannery, who has designed and fielded the ASAP program, will review the latest findings on psychological trauma, the basic principles of psychological first aid, and fundamental crisis intervention strategies

In this two-day course. Working within the context of ASAP, this course will combine lectures, case studies, and skill-building role-play situations for enhanced learning. At the end of the course, participants will understand psychological trauma, psychological first aid, crisis intervention procedures, and be able to design, field, and provide crisis intervention ASAP services for the victims and/or victim witnesses in their facilities.

As of 2005, ASAP had grown to include 31 teams in 5 states with over 1,000 persons trained as ASAP team members. In 1996, ASAP was nominated for the American Psychiatric Association’s Gold Medal Award and in 2000 ASAP received the State of Massachusetts Commonwealth Citation for Outstanding Performance statewide.

This course is a must for staff in agencies where violence is a regular and unwelcome visitor.

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
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.

Program Highlights

• 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)

Completion of “Assisting Individuals in Crisis” & “Group Crisis Intervention” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (27 Contact Hours) qualifies as two CORE classes in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
The call has been logged. Your unit has been dispatched. As you perform your duty to respond, are you safe? Behavioral emergencies are critical incidents in which the nature of the incident itself poses the risk of imminent harm toward responding emergency services and counselors, the agitated victim or suspect, and innocent family members or bystanders. Common frequent emergencies include crime, domestic violence, psychosis, psychological trauma, street gangs, substance use, and youth violence. This course provides practical assessment skills for evaluating risk and specific risk management interventions to enhance safety, when risk is present. This course is for emergency services, including police, fire, and emergency medical staff. The course is also for counselors who provide crisis care and includes psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, school counselors, pastoral counselors, case managers, residential house staff, youth workers, and other in similar fields.

This course is a companion course to Understanding Human Violence: Survival Information for Emergency Services and Counselors.

Course Highlights

• Main behavioral emergencies
• Importance of the old brain stem in crises
• Steps necessary in street scene surveillance
• Identifying an impending loss of control
• Biological changes that result in sustained hypervigilance
• Symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
• How to safely approach the house of a domestic violence situation
• Warning signs of youth violence
• Personal stress management program for work

Completion of “Behavioral Emergencies: Survival Strategies for Emergency Services and Counselors” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (13 Contact Hours) qualifies as a course in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Traumatic events involving children disturb and confuse both the children involved and the adult responders. Our children deserve the opportunity to heal from the frightening complications of childhood trauma. This course explores the developmental considerations and children’s trauma response from infancy through adolescence. Preventive, intervention and recovery strategies will assist the adult responding to traumatized children. This course will provide a venue for adults to gain comfort in their capability to assist traumatized children through a discussion of crisis management principles and the necessary modifications for children. Self-care for adult caregivers who recognize the need to heal our children is emphasized. Adults working with traumatized children must deal with their feelings of inadequacy as they seek to assist a child in crisis. Most adults do not feel prepared to deal with the intense reactions of children.

Program Highlights:

• Recognizing high-risk traumatized children
• Partnership opportunities within the community
• Assessment considerations with the traumatized child
• Trauma and grief symptomatology
• Developmental considerations pertinent to the traumatized child
• Correct and ethical crisis intervention sensitive to a child
• Development of crisis response plans
• Adolescent suicide deaths and appropriate crisis response
• Parental, family and community influences
• Implications on caring adults when working with traumatized children

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
Parents, caregivers, educators, crisis management professionals and emergency service CISM peer team members can benefit from the preventive and intervention guidelines and practical crisis management strategies offered in this course.

Course Description:

Staying current with your profession is not only tactically wise, it’s an ethical obligation we have as we touch the lives of others who are in extreme distress. This ICISF provides a thoughtful and stimulating review and update of the information and skills in the field.

Program Highlights:

• Differentiate among types of critical incidents
• Determine the link between critical incidents and psychological crises
• Define and identify types of crisis interventions
• Study the effectiveness of crisis interventions
• Define CISM and the core factors of CISM
• Determine the key elements of developing a strategic plan for CISM
• Apply strategies to identify who needs assistance and the interventions necessary
• Study the effectiveness of CISM
• Discuss the importance of empathy in a crisis intervention
• Identify different empathy techniques
• Apply a technique to a crisis situation
• Identify the three groups of survivors in a crisis response
• Identify the categories of the crisis responses with delineations of distress versus dysfunction
• Examine chemical foundations and key features of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Examine the SEA-3 mental status assessment
• Identify Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and determine how crisis intervention fits into Maslow’s theory
• Discuss the stages of the SAFER-R Model for crisis intervention and intervention techniques
• Integrate the CCDR Model with the SAFER-R Model
• Determine how to respond to and support a person in crisis using the CCDR and SAFER-R Models
• Discuss the importance of informational interventions
• Compare and contrast two group informational intervention methods – RIT and CMB
• Identify purposes of interactive group crisis intervention
• Explain the purpose, use, and segments of defusing
• Explain critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) and its phases
• Review the most appropriate group formats for crisis intervention
• Define and identify symptoms of compassion fatigue and burnout
• Determine common causes of these conditions
• Study factors to foster resilience among interventionists

Course Length: 1 Day (7 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:

This program is designed for CISM providers that want to update their knowledge to ensure that they are aware of the latest information and best practices in this field.

Prerequisites: Assisting Individuals in Crisis and Group Crisis Intervention courses

Course Description:
Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) is often misunderstood as to what it is and what it is not. Misrepresentations, lack of information, and general myths abound about CISM. What is it? How long does it take? Does this equate to fitness for duty? Is this just a big group hug?

In this presentation, we will provide an overview of CISM to clarify these misunderstandings and show the potential benefits to those that receive services. We will look at the tools under this program and how and when they are used. How to access services and what to expect when they are provided will also be covered.

Program Highlights:

• Gain and understanding of what CISM is and is not
• History of CISM
• CISM Myths
• When to use CISM services
• Tools of CISM – What to expect
• How to access services

Course Length: 1/2 Day (3 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
Anyone interested in learning about CISM who may be contemplating starting a program in their area or those that have CISM services available in their area but are unsure as to what it is and how it works.

Course Description:
Every day thousands of people are exposed to traumatic events in their workplace which can have significant impact and cause a number of challenges for a company and its employees. The types of events they are exposed to are varied and most often unexpected. Tragic events impact the productivity and psychological health of employees, whether from workplace violence, sudden death, massive layoffs or a natural disaster. When a traumatic event occurs, many businesses are not adequately prepared and need guidance on how to respond.

This course is designed for anyone wanting to learn all aspects of assisting businesses in preparing for and responding to potential traumatic incidents in the workplace. Those who seek to provide Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services in the corporate field must possess a comprehensive understanding of how to interface with a wide variety of businesses and corporations.

Program Highlights:

• Critical incidents that can affect a workplace
• Industry-specific culture and risk factors
• Referral, site assessment, and consultation
• Entities involved in a corporate crisis
• Issues and challenges of HR in a crisis
• Psychological crisis, employee concerns and wellness
• Creating a crisis plan for a business
• Developing a Peer team within a business
• Appropriate CISM interventions within a workplace
• Getting started in workplace crisis preparation and response

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:

The faith-based communities have long been responders to disaster and emergencies, providing needed care to those impacted. Recent events both in the US and internationally highlight the need for crisis services for those very faith-based communities when events impact their staff and volunteers. This workshop will address providing crisis services for places of worship, with an emphasis on caring for the staff, spiritual leadership, and worshipers as potential groups needing services.

Program Highlights:

• Explore the prevalence of violence in places of worship
• Identify “lessons learned” from case studies of episodes of violence in places of worship
• Identify factors that enhance crisis support for places of worship
• Identify common psychological reactions to critical incidents occurring in places of worship
• Identify key recommendations for providing support in faith-based venues
• Identify domains of assessment of crisis needs following a critical incident
• Develop a plan framework to be utilized in your place of worship

Course Length: 1 Day (7 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:

This program is designed for those in faith-based communities that are responsible for the identification and planning for various emergencies that may occur within their organization.

Prerequisites: None

Course Description:
Grief and Bereavement are a natural part of life. Events occur naturally and traumatically in everyone’s life that that have the potential to evoke grief reactions. When this happens how can you support these people as they go through this life challenge?

In this awareness level program, we will provide an overview of what grief is, what types of grief and bereavement reactions you can expect under different circumstances, and how you can support people experiencing these reactions. This program is not designed to be a comprehensive training on bereavement, but rather an opportunity to look at the basics of the issue and learn some useful tools to help and learn about things to avoid.

Program Highlights:

• Grief & Bereavement defined
• Types of events where you can expect grief and bereavement reactions
• What to expect at a crisis scene and the immediate aftermath
• Types of Grief & Bereavement reactions
• Normal vs Traumatic Grief
• Supporting the person
• Resources
• Self-care

Course Length: 1/2 Day (3 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
Anyone who deals with those who may be suffering grief and bereavement reactions to an event and want to learn some basic indicators, signs/symptoms to look for, and some fundamental strategies to help support a person going through this process.

Course Description:
This advanced level course will enhance your skills to provide effective emotional and spiritual care (ESC) to meet the disaster-related needs of disaster responders and disaster-affected families and individuals within disaster operations. This course builds on the crisis intervention principles taught in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) core courses to effectively integrate these principles within ESC teams for appropriate care throughout the disaster continuum from the immediate to the long-term recovery process.

This course is designed for trained clergy, chaplains, mental health professionals, and CISM trained crisis responders who desire to enhance their skills in providing Emotional and Spiritual Care to survivors of disaster and trauma.

Suggested but not mandatory prerequisites: Assisting Individuals in Crisis (also known as Individual Crisis Intervention & Peer Support); Group Crisis Intervention; Pastoral Crisis Intervention.

Course Highlights

• One’s own faith tradition and ESC
• ESC & the Incident Command System
• ESC & disaster relief operations
• Physical, psychological, emotional impact of disasters
• Behavioral, interpersonal and spiritual impact of disasters
• Range of ESC interventions in the aftermath
• Suitability to provide ESC
• Maintaining health during deployment
• Deployment personal care plans
• Intervention and care giving concepts

Completion of “Emotional & Spiritual Care in Disasters” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (14 Contact Hours) qualifies as a course in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Any given crisis can be contagious! Any person who is part of a family unit and who has been affected by a crisis, trauma, or disaster brings the crisis home to the members of the family. The crisis can spread to family members directly through abuse, abandonment, neglect or indirectly through isolation, withdrawal and the like. Family support services should be part of any truly integrated CISM program. Its absence clearly weakens the potential CISM effectiveness. Critical incident stress management with families is a complex topic with specific issues that need to be addressed when working with families.

Program Highlights:

• Family & Services Needed
• Family Stress: Types, Sources, and Effects
• What is a “Crisis” for a Family
• Family CISM vs. Standard CISM
• Introduction of the “Example Population”
• Program Development
• Education and Information Programs
• CISM Family Interventions
• Working with the “Immediate Family”
• Children and Trauma

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is vital for CISM teams, emergency service professionals, their spouses, significant others, families, organizational leaders, mental health professionals and clergy to establish and maintain an essential family component to CISM network systems.

Group Crisis Intervention should be viewed as prerequisite and Individual Crisis Intervention and Peer Support is recommended.

Course Description:
Public safety personnel who also have dual roles in the military are facing new challenges today. Military life and deployments often can leave the first responder/combat veteran with traumatic experiences that get ”triggered” when they return to serve in their public safety roles. The young child struck by a car, entering a burning building, or the need to draw a service weapon can instantly transport our rescuer mentally back to the battlefield. These instances can be anticipated and dealt with but would you know what to do? How do you apply your CISM skills to the combat veteran?

Program Highlights:

• Types of symptoms present in the returning military veteran
• Principles of combat stress interventions
• Challenges being faced not common to previous
• “Lessons learned” about combat stress / psychological injuries
• “Deadly Combat Sins”
• “Battlemind” skills that must be transitioned upon retuning home
• “Triggers” that can remind the military veteran of combat experience
• Steps of the RESTORE protocol and where it may be used
• Signs and/or symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury
• Resources for referral and/or additional help

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This workshop is intended for CISM team peers, clinicians, chaplains, military personnel, and anyone else who may be asked to work with public safety personnel who are also in the military such as veteran’s outreach staff. The information shared and skills taught in this workshop have also been reported to be helpful for those who work with active duty military personnel.

Course Description:
Explore the relationship between exposure to traumas and the often resulting addiction. Those individuals who work in the ”helping professions” are statistically at a greater risk for developing addictions. The use of alcohol, drugs and other activities as a means of self-medicating overwhelming job-related stress and chronic exposure to emotionally charged events is often common place. Personality traits and the human culture of “helpers” are looked at, as well as issues of enabling and family dynamics. Good critical incident stress management MUST include an addictions component which addresses these dangers, and gives you the tools necessary to address these dependencies.

Program Highlights:

• Addiction Issues of Concern
• Generalized Adaptation Syndrome
• PTSD, Alcoholism and Addictions
• Extremes of Human Stress
• Assessing Incidents
• Addiction and Suicide
• Enabling, Jackpots & Co-Dependency
• Belief Systems and Recovery
• Roads to Living Clean and Sober
• Living with Someone in Recovery

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is for those in the “helping professions” who are at a greater risk to crisis and the potential for substance abuse and additions and those who work with this specialized population.

Course Description:
In the course of one’s career, it is inevitable that professionals will encounter traumatic death and loss issues both personally and professionally. Professionals often feel ill prepared to provide effective care throughout the grief process. This course will cover key grief and loss concepts relating to trauma and traumatic death. Participants will increase their knowledge of how trauma impacts the grief process and will gain skills for evaluating and supporting persons who have experienced traumatic death and loss.

Program Highlights:

• Characteristics of trauma
• Clinical implications of grief
• Primary needs of victims
• What helps and what hurts
• Types of traumatic events
• Traumatic grief and grief reactions
• Death notification
• Applications of the SAFER model
• Supporting grieving people
• Personal self-care plan

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is designed for anyone who works with people who experience grief and loss following a traumatic event.

Course Description:
Designed to present the core elements of a comprehensive, systematic and multi-component crisis intervention curriculum, the Group Crisis Intervention course will prepare participants to understand a wide range of crisis intervention services. 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.

Program Highlights:

• Relevant research findings
• Relevant recommendations for practice
• Incident assessment
• Strategic intervention planning
• “Resistance, resilience, recovery” continuum
• Large group crisis interventions
• Small group crisis interventions
• Adverse outcome associated with crisis intervention
• Reducing risks
• Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD)

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
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.

Course Description:
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”. This program is designed to teach participants the fundamentals of, and a specific protocol for, individual crisis intervention.

Program Highlights:

• 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
• Risks of iatrogenic “harm”

Course Length: 2 Days (13 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is designed for anyone who desires to increase their knowledge of individual (one-on-one) crisis intervention techniques 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.

Course Description:
Learn to identify, understand, and work with the ”Blue Wall of Silence” in the law enforcement community. Designed to provide insight and understanding of the different types of stress in law enforcement culture from a systems perspectives emphasis, this course will provide practical “back pocket skills” in providing crisis intervention services to law enforcement organizations and individual personnel in crisis.

Program Highlights:

• Community perceptions of the Law Enforcement Profession
• Differentiated Model of oppression in capitalistic systems
• System dysfunctions in the LE culture
• Special considerations when providing CMB group interventions
• Stress areas of a LE officer in crisis help
• Specific stress areas to LE officer culture
• Healthy coping mechanisms and resiliency protective factors
• Interventions to a suicide of a LE officer or a LODD
• Addictions and CISM response
• Psychological / emotional perceptions following an officer involved shooting

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
The LE Perspectives course is intended for law enforcement officers, their families, mental health professionals, chaplains, and organizations that interact within the law enforcement community. It is an excellent course for CISM teams and team members who would want to enhance their understanding of the differences in the law enforcement culture as compared to other first responder cultures.

Course Description:
Violence in the United States is a national public health issue. Increasingly, much of this violence is committed by our children and teenagers. Crimes by our young people are no longer predominantly misdemeanors but now include the major felonies of homicide, rape, robbery, and serious assault. Adults are understandably concerned by the depraved indifference of many of our youth and ask three questions: Why is this happening? Are there no warning signs? Can anything be done to prevent this senseless cruelty? There are warning signs. Frequently, these warning signs have been there for several years. These signs offer insights in to why this violence is erupting and what we can do to prevent and mitigate its occurrence.

This two-day course will review the major theories of youth violence; examine the continuum of early, serious, and urgent warning signs; and present basic guidelines for preventing youth violence. Since some violent acts will continue to occur, this course will examine the Assaulted Staff Action Program (ASAP), a Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) approach, that both addresses the psychological needs of victims of violence and has been shown to reduce the frequency of violence. Lectures, case studies, and class discussions will be utilized to enhance learning and at the end of the course, participants will understand the theories of violence, the continuum of warning signs, and an array of prevention strategies.

This course is a must for emergency services personnel who respond to the aftermath of youth violence and for counselors, teachers, youth workers, probation and parole personnel, ministers, and the many others who work with our young people and whose collective efforts may appreciably impact and prevent youth violence.

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Resilience is recognized as an important factor in sustained health and performance in the workplace. Recent changes in healthcare delivery, ethics, and technology present both stress and opportunities for personal and career development and finding meaning in one’s work. The role of specific behaviors, values, mindsets and relationships in sustaining resilience is becoming more commonly appreciated. This course will present the state of the field of resilience in Healthcare. It is designed for Nursing Professionals, Physicians, Pre-hospital providers, and all those who serve in healthcare today. Interactive exercises will assist in enhancing resilience from multiple perspectives to elicit and teach the skills of resilience. The role of resilience training for new professionals, as well as the role of supervisors, mentors, and preceptors in enhancing resilience will be reviewed. The connection between resilience and expert performance and decision making will be discussed.

Program Highlights:

• The multiple perspectives of resilience in Healthcare
• The Practices of Resilience: Behavior, mindsets, values
• Resilience and performance
• The development of Resilient Professionals
• Supervisors and resilient staff development
• Mentoring / Preceptor strategies for Resilience
• Personal plan for building resilience
• Integration with training / continuing education

Completion of “Resilience in Healthcare: Performance, Meaning and Connection” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Educators nationwide and worldwide struggle to establish and manage School Crisis Response Teams in response to the recent escalation in frequency and scope of campus emergencies. Community CISM teams have much to offer, but much to learn about the unique milieu of schools. Similarly, schools can benefit from CISM technology and strategies. This course attempts to develop a common language and approach that fits within the broad goals and specific needs of school crisis management. Working together in multi-disciplinary teams, we explore organizing principles, develop specific skills and culminate in a large incident planning simulation.

The Group Crisis Intervention course is recommended as a prerequisite but not required, as an overview of techniques will be provided. This course is designed for anyone with working in or with those in an educational setting.

Program Highlights:

• Prevalence and effects of crisis on school performance
• The comprehensive nature of crisis management
• Developing a crisis plan
• Intervention techniques
• Effects of traumatic stress on learning and the school milieu
• Specific goals of crisis response
• Unique role and needs of building administrators
• Mitigating the effects of a crisis
• Responding to and managing a school-based crisis
• Signs and symptoms of excessive stress

Completion of “Responding to School Crises: An Integrated Multi-Component Crisis Intervention Approach” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (14 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Research validates that the help and support people receive in times of crisis matters. Providing effective emotional and spiritual care to individuals, families, and communities in difficult times is critical and can help promote resiliency and recovery. This two-day course endeavors to build helping skills and a better understanding of the unique role of the crisis responder and trains participants in the fundamental principles of spiritual and psychological first aid (SPFA). Care provided in SPFA may be defined as a practical, compassionate and supportive presence designed to mitigate acute distress, assess needs, provide essential supportive care, and link with other support systems as needed for ongoing spiritual, emotional, and mental health care.

Targeted participants will be trained clergy, chaplains, mental health professionals, crisis responders, and individuals who desire to enhance their skills in providing SPFA to survivors of loss, disaster, emergency, trauma, and crisis settings.

Course Highlights:
At the conclusion of this course, successful students will be able to:

• Identify evidence-informed foundations for SPFA
• Articulate an understanding of the “ministry of presence” and “companioning.”
• Define the essential elements of connecting and communicating with people in crisis
• Prepare survivors to understand commonly experienced psychological/ behavioral reactions and the process of recovery
• Identify indicators of resiliency, recovery and post traumatic growth to encourage help, hope and healing
• Identify how meeting basic human needs is foundational to providing SPFA
• Demonstrate essential interventions to help stabilize and protect people in crisis
• Create a safe environment that facilitates effective listening and crisis communication
• Link those served with existing community support services and develop an ongoing care plan
• Demonstrate skills for assessing spiritual and psychological needs of individuals in crisis
• Utilize a spiritual assessment framework to identify ways to help an individual draw on spiritual and religious resources to cope and foster resiliency

Course Description:
Knowing what sequence of crisis intervention processes to use for which individuals or groups, at what times, and under what circumstances is crucial to all effective early intervention programs. The course will present essential information for the assessment of both crisis situations and the effects of critical incidents on people involved in those situations. Learn to create an effective plan of action to assist those in crisis and complete a series of exercises designed to sharpen assessment and crisis planning skills. Strategic planning and tactical decision making are emphasized, as are rationales for choosing one set of crisis intervention processes over another.

Program Highlights:

• Strategic planning as it applies to crisis intervention
• National Incident Management System and crisis intervention
• Elements of Effective Planning
• Steps in Developing the Plan
• Planning process in assessing target populations
• Determining the type, timing and resources necessary
• Assisting large numbers of people involved in a crisis
• The most important crisis intervention tactics
• Managing a complicated or large scale crisis event

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course builds confidence that crisis interventionists will make the right choices of interventions for the populations they are assisting under specific circumstances. This course requires previous training and experience.

“Group Crisis Intervention” and “Individual Crisis Intervention and Peer Support” should be viewed as prerequisites.

Course Description:
The ability to recognize and effectively intervene with suicidal individuals is one of the most challenging aspects of crisis intervention. This course is recommended for those without formal mental health training. The course is designed to increase awareness of suicide, and equip participants with information and basic skills to respond to a person considering suicide. Discussions, demonstrations, and scenarios will be used to facilitate learning. This is an introductory level course.

Program Highlights:

• Overview of suicide
• Crisis intervention and suicide prevention
• Preventative and Protective Factors
• Risk and Recognition
• Strategies for Responding to those considering suicide
• Referral Skills and Resources

Completion of “Suicide Awareness: An Introduction for Crisis Responders” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Why do people kill themselves? How do I ask someone if they are feeling suicidal? What do I do if they say they ARE suicidal? How do I deal with the strong emotions suicide generates? This course will provide answers for these and other questions many of crisis interventionists have about suicide. It will provide participants with basic information about suicide as well as help participants develop practical skills for prevention, intervention and postvention. Small group role plays will allow participants to apply the suggested techniques as they are learned.

Program Highlights:

• Common myths about suicide
• Risk factors for suicidal behavior
• Frequent motivations for suicide
• Problem solving methods
• Effective intervention strategies
• Elements of effective postvention
• Elements of survivor grief
• Community referral sources
• “Mini-lecture” on suicide
• Feelings and reactions of suicide survivors

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is open to anyone who wishes to learn more about intervening across the suicide spectrum. Professionals from 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 may all benefit.

Course Description:
Whether we are a recipient or a messenger of bad news, it impacts and distresses each of us. The necessity of delivering upsetting information causes most people distress. No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. The difficult task, however, can be made less painful if certain principles and practices are employed. This one-day course provides the participants with a variety of insights that will help them to organize and deliver disturbing news. It also provides guidelines for assisting the recipients once the announcement of the information has been made.

Program Highlights

• Elements of crisis intervention that are commonly utilized in the provision of disturbing bad news
• Primary steps required to make an effective announcement of upsetting information
• Common reactions of people when they are informed of emotionally distressing information
• Components of an announcement of bad news
• Distress experienced by the recipients of psychology disturbing news
• Special considerations for providing bad news to children, the elderly and persons with special needs

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Acts of terrorism are unparalleled in their potential to undermine psychological stability. This course will explore preparedness and response to terrorism with an emphasis on at-risk populations, coping mechanisms, resiliency, self-care for disaster responders, and lessons learned from the Oklahoma City bombing and the attacks of 9/11/01. Psychological and psychosomatic symptoms will be presented, with discussion of how reactions may vary depending on the type of weapon utilized (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive, and cyberterrorism). Other topics will include recent innovations in response to catastrophic disasters and terrorism, including Family Assistance Centers and Respite Centers.

Program Highlights:

• Disaster and their psychological implications
• Trauma, “at-risk” groups, and phases of disaster
• “Disaster invariables” that occur in every disaster
• Terrorism and the intended effects of terrorism
• Impacts of terrorism from personal experience
• “Toxicity factors” of terrorist events
• Factors and situations that influence psychological response
• “Four-step therapeutic conversation”
• Psychological impact of disasters
• “Benign” vs “malignant” psychological reactions

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
This course is designed for anyone who wants to be prepared for effective response to terrorism, including first responders, emergency managers, the military, health and mental health professionals, chaplains and spiritual care personnel, disaster workers, childcare workers and school personnel, and responders in the corporate sector.

Course Description:
Emergency services and counselors are asked to respond to natural and man-made disasters and human-perpetrated violence. These latter requests may involve critical incidents such as street crime, domestic violence, workplace violence, psychosis, substances use, and youth violence. This two-day course focuses on enhancing safety and survival when providing care in these situations.

The course presents what is known about these types of violence and the settings where they occur so that personnel onsite have a better understanding of what has happened and how to provide care safely in these circumstances. The course will focus on the theories of violence; violent acts in the home, the community, and the workplace; and issues associated with youth violence. Since not all human violence is preventable, the course will include a short overview of psychological trauma and CISM interventions to address the needs of victims in the aftermath of these violent acts at the hands of others. The problem of evil will be a central focus of the course.

This course is a companion course to Behavioral Emergencies: Survival Strategies for Emergency Services and Counselors. Having learned why patients become violent, the companion course focuses on specific strategies for safety, including scene surveillance, self-defense strategies, and self-care skills. Neither course is a prerequisite for the other but together provide a well-rounded approach for providing safe and secure care.

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:

All mental health professionals know that we need to understand the cultural setting of our clients to provide the most effective interventions. This is also true for working with First Responder’s. For the purposes of this training, First Responder’s are identified as those individuals who work as: Dispatchers, Law Enforcement Officers, Correctional Officers, Firefighters, and Emergency Medical personnel.

There are some issues/stressors that cut across all of these professions, but also some that are more unique to the specific group. This course identifies the cultures of each profession and their unique stressors. The various CISM courses teach a variety of group approaches to crisis intervention, but what about the follow-up if an individual comes to us for assistance not related to a Critical Incident? First Responder’s can have a variety of life issues including marital problems, family issues, depression, substance abuse struggles, PTSD, etc. We need to understand the unique stress of their professions and how those might impact their non-professional lives in order to offer the most effective help.

This class will provide information about first responders’ cultures and opportunities for discussion regarding adapting our clinical approach to meet the needs of first responder’s.

Program Highlights:

• First Responder cultures
• Unique stressors in the First Responder world
• The “functional dysfunctionalities” that work for First Responder’s on the job
• The “resistance, resilience, recovery” continuum
• Intervention skills and resources that are relevant to First Responder’s

Course Length: 1 Day (7 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:
Any mental health provider who would like to know more about the Uniform Services culture and has a desire to work with this population.

Course Description:
Uniformed services personnel respond to individual and cumulative trauma experiences using coping strategies that are common to the culture of their organization. They receive some training and often have available to them a variety of psychological assistance. Their family members, however, are often left to their own to recognize and understand the suffering of their loved one. Like the responder, the family member finds this difficult to do alone.

Providing information and an educational opportunity for family members and those who care for uniformed services responder family members should be an integral part of a good CISM program.

Course Description:
Violence in the workplace is a serious health and safety issue. This course will provide an overview of current thinking and best practices in workplace violence prevention, response, and recovery. The focus will be on designing a proactive approach as well as a comprehensive response plan to meet the needs of organizations at risk. An interactive format, with group exercises and scenarios will be used to enhance the application of the material to simulated events. We will review actual workplace violence case studies, taking a “lessons learned “approach. Participants will be asked to bring their experience, questions, and specific workplace violence concerns to the training to enhance the practical value of the course. This course will benefit crisis responders as well as any business, employee or management group interested in successful strategies in dealing with workplace violence.

Workshop Highlights:

• Workplace Violence Defined
• Categories and Types of Workplace Violence
• Prevention Strategies
• Threat Assessment
• Response Strategies
• Recovery Issues
• Challenging Situations
• Healthy Workplace Characteristics

Completion of “Techniques for Delivering Bad News for Crisis Response Personnel” and receipt of a certificate indicating full attendance (7 Contact Hours) qualifies as a class in ICISF’s Certificate of Specialized Training Program.

Course Description:
Thought Field Therapy (TFT) eliminates overwhelming emotional distress in minutes. There are no negative side effects, it does not require the retelling of the events, and TFT works with skeptical individuals. TFT is a non-cognitive approach that uses the control mechanism for the mind, body, and emotions found in the energy system of Chinese medicine. Clients tap with their fingertips on meridian treatment points in specific sequences while thinking of past or future events triggering the overwhelming distress. Standard tapping patterns have been established for most negative emotions based on the causal diagnostic procedures discovered by Dr. Roger Callahan and developed over twenty years with thousands of individuals.

Participants receive the Video: Introduction to Thought Field Therapy, Trauma and Thought Field Therapy by Roger Callahan, PhD, and the Algorithm Training Manual.

Program Highlights:

• Basic skills to effectively use TFT
• Applications of Algorithms
• Strategies for integrating TFT
• Adapting TFT to various populations and settings
• Overcoming resistance to rapid treatment approaches
• Anger, Resentment, Guilt & Grief
• Addictive Urges
• Simple Phobias
• Stress Reduction
• Rapid Relaxation

Course Length: 2 Days (14 Contact Hours)

Course Description

In times of crisis and adversity leadership is essential.  The course RESILIENT LEADERSHIP For Emergency Services and Healthcare Professions is a unique science based program which prepares leaders to create an organizational culture of resilience.

Frontline leaders/managers will find Resilient Leadership especially useful. Topics include resilience oriented communications, the four characteristics that separate effective crisis leaders from others, and common mistakes leaders make.

 Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Define and recognize resilience.
• Define and recognize a resilient organizational culture.
• Define the two covenants of Resilient Leadership.
• Define the four core pillars of Resilient Leadership.
• Practice Resilient Leadership by implementing 20 specific Resilient Leadership prescriptions (RX) to create a “culture of resilience.”
• Avoid the “7 deadly sins” of leadership.

Course Length: 1 Day (7 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:

This program is designed for anyone in the uniformed services field that may find themselves in positions of leadership. Whether you are a “formal” leader on an organizational chart, or the “informal” leader in an agency that people look to for answers, this program is for you. This course explores avenues of leadership pros and cons that can benefit the newest leader to the most seasoned.

Course Description

This course is designed to aid you in building a personal culture of resilience and holistic health.  Our unique approach is intended to help you learn to better manage the stress in your life in order to increase your potential for happiness, success, and even create a competitive advantage through the creation of what we call Psychological Body Armor ™.  There is no “quick fix” in this program.  It is not designed to be a “pop psych” feel-good course.  Rather, this course contains facts and specific suggestions for actions you can take to enhance your personal resilience, all based upon the latest and most credible science.

 Program Highlights:

• Describe the nature of Psychological Body Armor ™ (PBA)
• Recognize resilient attitudes
• Use physical exercise to strengthen PBA
• Use nutrition to fuel PBA
• Use rest to recharge and restore PBA
• Use interpersonal support
• Understand how spirituality relates to PBA
• Develop a PBA plan

Course Length: 1 Day (7 Contact Hours)

Intended Audience:

This program is designed for anyone in the uniformed services field, or those that support this group. Common attendees include, but are not limited to EAP, human resources and public safety personnel, mental health professionals, chaplains, emergency medical services providers, firefighters, physicians, police officers, nurses, telecommunicators, airline personnel, disaster workers, and anyone else who is looking to enhance their “shield” to stress in their lives.