Critical Incident Stress Management

Critical Incident Stress Management:
A program dedicated to New Brunswick's Front Line Workers

What is a critical incident?
A critical incident is a situation that is traumatic for the front line worker involved. The incident causes the worker to experience unusually strong emotional reaction any time during or after the incident.

• serious injury or death of a co-worker in the line of duty;
• loss of a patient after prolonged rescue attempts;
• incidents that attract considerable media attention;
• personal identification with a victim or his/her circumstances;
• suicide of a co-worker;
• serious injury or death of a person; and,
• death of, or violence towards, a child.

What is the program?
The program is intended to reduce the buildup of stress in people who work in high burnout jobs. At the same time, it promotes good mental health for New Brunswicks valued front line workers.

A provincial team, made up of mental health professionals and front line peer support personnel trained in critical incident stress management, has been established in collaboration with Mental Health Services and the College of Psychologists of New Brunswick. The team is responsible for pre-service stress awareness and prevention training and post-incident interventions.

Why is it needed?
There is a commonly held belief that front-line workers are super-human and immune to the stress they routinely encounter in their jobs. However, no one is prepared to deal with things like loss of life and human suffering on a regular basis. When this stress builds up it causes burn-out, disruption in normal routine, and on a wider level, the loss of front line professionals from their chosen field.

Understanding the impact of critical incident stress and applying appropriate interventions when incidents do occur have been found to be very helpful to front line workers in dealing with the abnormal stress they may encounter in their daily work. It has also been proven to be a cost-effective program. Research has shown that for every dollar spent in prevention services for critical incident stress, seven dollars in remedial employee services are saved.

What are the services?
Critical incident stress management services are a range of interventions aimed at preventing burn-out and providing opportunities to deal with the impact of trauma in front line workers. Services offered include:

• pre-incident stress awareness sessions, offered in the workplace;
• defusing for individuals or work teams immediately after a critical incident response has been completed;
• debriefing of multi-agency groups of responders following a critical incident response, to enable workers to share their thoughts and reactions while discussing the incident. This is an educational session. It is not, and should not be confused with, an operational debriefing. Confidentiality is assured;
• follow-up contact and referral of individuals to mental health service providers for further assistance, if needed;
• demobilization for front line workers during the course of an ongoing, major response to a critical incident;
• on-going education and training for team members.

Who and where are the teams?
The New Brunswick CISM team is comprised of a network of 14 regional teams, based in each of the regional Community Mental Health Centres. Members of the team are local mental health professionals, such as psychologists, social workers, nurses and clergy. In addition, there are also peer support personnel from front line professions, such as firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, hospital emergency room staff, child protection workers, public health nurses, correction officers and coroners, commercial vehicle enforcement officers, natural resources wardens, and Search and Rescue volunteers.

The provincial CISM team also works in close cooperation with the RCMP, the military, Correctional Services of Canada, and the Red Cross. These people are all specially trained to recognize possible problems faced by front line workers, provide support in their own workplaces, and participate in post-incident interventions.

Who to contact?
Your local Community Mental Health Centre will be able to provide you with the name and phone number of the regional Critical Incident Stress Management Team Leader. That person is responsible for arranging for pre- and post-incident interventions with your group, as well as ensuring follow-up services, if needed.

What is your agencys responsibility?
Your agency is expected to ensure that all workers are invited to attend any pre-incident awareness sessions. If members of your agency have been involved in a critical incident response, you are expected to encourage all those involved to participate in any post-incident sessions that are arranged for them. Your agency is also responsible for covering the costs incurred by your employees in terms of work time or mileage required to attend the critical incident stress intervention.