Crisis Debriefing
Discussion about Crisis Debriefing started in 2005 when supervisors were concerned about debriefing child welfare staff after an egregious incident and they were concerned about secondary traumatic stress. That's where things really started: identifying secondary trauma and the need to address it. From there, trainings for Secondary Traumatic Stress were developed and implement for supervisors and workers.
Several models of debriefing were studied and in 2012, Mary Pulido from the New York Society of Prevention to Cruelty to Children was brought in to present at a joint Administrators Conference. She presented on Restoring Resilience Response Model that they use for debriefing child welfare workers in New York City. Following the conference, input was received from focus groups at the WCHSA Conference and from several volunteer counties about what they needed in terms of crisis debriefing. Based upon that input and our research, we decided to pursue a hybrid model of the Mitchell Model of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and the Restoring Resilience Response Model (RRR model). Greg Young has been working with us on developing and training this hybrid model.
The counties who helped initiate Crisis Debriefing felt that it would be beneficial to support one another and be able to call on debriefers trained from neighboring counties to debrief their staff if there was a critical incident. Each county trained in Crisis Debriefing has an assigned point person and an administrative contact that can be contacted for support, if needed.
We offer a two-day Crisis Debriefing training where participants will receive a certificate from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) for 14.0 Continuing Education Hours. The fee for the two-day training is $70 for full members and $270 for partial and non-members.
Following the two-day day training, we offer a one-day Advanced Crisis Debriefing training that is a full day of practicing debriefing skills using scenarios relating to human services work. Participants will receive a certificate for 6.0 Continuing Education Hours from BHTP for the one-day Advanced Crisis Debriefing training. The fee for the one-day training is $35 for full members and $135 for partial and non-members.
Resources
Critical Incident Crisis Debriefing Guidelines
Debriefing Guidelines
Sample County Policies and Forms
Below are sample policies, procedures and forms from various county agencies. These samples can be helpful for new counties who are creating their own policies, procedures and forms. It is important to have policies and procedures in place that can help create the structure for this process to work. It is up to each agency to decide how they want to develop these policies. Important points to consider are what constitutes the need for a debriefing, when do you need external debriefing, identifying staff to be trained, making sure all staff know who to go to if they feel they need debriefing, and incorporating it into new employee orientation.
Dodge County
Outagamie County
Sheboygan County
Winnebago County
Sample Scenarios
Upcoming Crisis Debriefing Trainings
Upcoming Advanced Crisis Debriefing Trainings
If your agency is interested in participating, please contact Joanne Tulachka at
tulachkj@uwgb.edu with your questions or to register for training. These training opportunities are not available on our website. You need to request the link to register and must be part of a new or established team to do so.