Behavioral Emergencies: Survival Strategies for Emergency Services and Counselors

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.

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