December 15, 2007
Discussing a hypothetical mass disaster and planning a response— Andrew Jasper from Akiak, Martha Simon from Hooper Bay, Maggie Harpak from Emmonak, all Behavioral Health Aides, and Louis Mallette, CISM Coordinator, from Bethel.
Critical Incident Stress Management:
Employees learn to help others in crisis
Any of us could experience a traumatic event that affects us and our communities.
A Critical Incident is an unusually challenging event, such as a murder, suicide, fatal accident or a mass disaster that has the potential to create significant human distress, and can overwhelm us.
In the event of a critical incident, YKHC has a team of trained debriefers who can provide Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM).
"We traveled to seven villages this year in response to traumatic events, and coordinated responses in several other villages, some involving follow-up visits." said program Coordinator Louis Mallette.
CHAP (Community Health Aide Program) Support Counselor Carl Evans provided ongoing support and counseling for health clinic staff and SIs during the year and has conducted group debriefings as well as individual interventions.
Along with direct services such as counseling and intervention, CISM staff also offer training courses. In March, the program organized a four-day Basic CISM training, in which 15 people were certified to provide Individual Intervention and group Critical Incident Stress Debriefing services. Trainees included YKHC Behavioral Health Aides and Clinicians, an Alaska State Trooper, a psychologist from Anchorage, two YKHC nurses, a CHAP Supervisor Instructor, and a CHAP manager.
Another training was held in October-25 people from YKHC's Behavioral Health Department, the YKHC Sexual Assault Response Team, the YKHC Women's Health program, and the Alaska State Troopers were certified in Basic Group and Individual CISM.
"This training greatly increased the number of villages with CISM-trained individuals, and expanded agencies' existing CISM capabilities," Mallette said.
Some of these people who had received basic CISM training participated in advanced training for certification in November. This training was designed to prepare CISM team members to be response team leaders.
Further such trainings are in the works for next year. The program is also considering a Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Post-intervention class.
