Critical Incident Debriefing

A Critical Incident is any event or situation that creates a significant risk of substantial harm to the physical or mental health, safety or well-being of the people involved.

Critical Incident Debriefing (CID) is an effective procedure that specifically helps people deal with the often overwhelming responses that can result from a range of critical incidents.

CID is designed to help people deal with their trauma one incident at a time, by allowing them to talk about the incident 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 been adapted and used virtually everywhere there is a need to address traumatic impact in people’s lives.

Critical incidents can have a huge on people’s levels of distress and the impacts that it may have on being able to perform their role effectively or attend work.

Benefits of CIDs can include:

• Lessening the impact of the critical incident
• Normalising the instinctive reactions to the incident
• Encouraging the natural recovery process
• Restoring the adaptive functioning skills of the person and/or group
• Determining the need for further supportive services.

I use a robust process to manage critical incidents, and day-to-day unexpected incidents that I will specifically tailor to meet your needs.

This can include:

• Debriefing: this is a proactive intervention involving a group meeting or discussion about a particularly distressing critical incident.
• Defusing: this is an intervention that is a shorter, less formal version of a debriefing. (It generally lasts from 30 to 60 minutes but may go longer and is best conducted within a day of the critical incident.)
• Grief and Loss Sessions: these 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.