A Critical Incident is any actual or alleged traumatic event or situation that creates a significant risk of substantial harm to the physical or mental health, safety or well being of an employee.
This is where critical incident management comes in. A critical incident management definition is where you help those affected by critical incidents or ensure that they don’t become victims of one.
Specifically, there is a form which helps deal with the emotional sides of a critical incident. Here we can help you with this with critical incident management plan tailored towards this.
What is CISM?
Critical Incident Stress Management otherwise known as CISM is designed to help people deal with their trauma one incident at a time, by allowing them to talk about the incident when it happens without judgment or criticism. First developed for use with military combat veterans and then civilian first responders (police, fire, ambulance, emergency workers and disaster rescuers), it has now been adapted and used virtually everywhere there is a need to address traumatic impact in people's lives.
Health Assured can offer a range of CISM support services, including crisis intervention, and post-incident support.
We have a robust process in place to manage high-risk traumatic situations and critical incidents, and day-to-day unexpected incidents, that is supported by an experienced UK and international network of specialist CISM personnel.
Benefits of critical incident stress management
We recognise the impacts of critical incidents on employees’ levels of distress and the impacts that it may have on being able to perform their role effectively or attend work.
We design our corporate wellness services to enhance employees’ natural resilience and provide specialist support to minimise effects of trauma and promote wellbeing and recovery. It is a system of support that is meant to do the following:
- Lessen the impact of the critical incident
- Normalise instinctive reactions to the incident
- Encourage the natural recovery process
- Restore the adaptive functioning skills of the person and/or group
- Determine the need for further supportive services or therapy
Types of CISM
When developing a critical incident stress management plan, there are several types of CISM that can we can deploy, either together or individually.
Debriefing: is a proactive intervention involving a group meeting or discussion about a particularly distressing critical incident. We know this as critical incident stress debriefing (CISD.)
Grief and Loss Sessions: are a structured group or individual session following a death and assists people in understanding their own grief reactions as well as creating a healthy atmosphere of openness and dialogue.
Crisis Management Briefings: are large group interventions used before, during and after a crisis.
24/7 Telephone Support
As part of our standard telephonic EAP services, we offer immediate critical incident support via our trained in-house trauma practitioners. Managers with the authority to invoke critical incident support can access telephone support for immediate advice and recommendations regarding appropriate actions to support those affected.
On-site Support
We can deploy our extensive network of clinicians to any location within 24 to 48 hours for on-site defusing and stress management. On-site group briefings can be provided within 24 hours of an incident for information only or for active defusing
We provide a range of on-site critical incident services to support individuals and groups of employees suffering from traumatic stress.
Aftercare
We guarantee trauma aftercare following a CISM debrief with Health Assured’s in-house trained trauma counsellors and mental health professionals, who are available 24/7 to provide telephone support or a clinical assessment and short-term structured telephone counselling or a referral to face-to-face counselling.
To find out more about our Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services, get in touch with our dedicated team today.
Talk to an expert or call us 0800 206 2532
