Critical Incident – trauma, trends, and today’s workplace
“Most of the time, most of us will cope,” Sandra Johnston (Seed’s Critical Incident Services Manager) explains.
“However, for all of us, there are times when our coping mechanisms are stretched to their limit and a traumatic event out of left field can be enough to tip the balance.”
That’s when Seed’s Trauma Support services come in.
What is a critical incident?
There is an industry term for these events that tip the balance beyond our ability to cope, they are called “critical incidents.” A critical incident is any incident, either unexpected in itself or unexpected in its degree of impact, that has the potential to overwhelm us and shut down our coping abilities either at the scene or later.
The key issue is the impact of the event.
As Sandra explains, “People have different degrees of stress any day of the week and, for some, all it needs is one thing out of left field to tips the balance.
“A little stress is normal and most of us need it - we have to have everyday stress or we don’t function. However, stress related to a critical incident has the potential to overwhelm our coping strategies altogether.”
Increasingly workplaces seem to appreciate that we bring the whole of ourselves to our workplaces – when they hire people they are employing complex emotional creatures, not mechanical skill sets. Critical Incident services, such as Seed’s Trauma Support, are part of a standard of care that recognises the whole person in the workplace.
Seed has been helping New Zealand workplaces invest in the wellness of their staff for over 30 years. Trauma Support, and specifically the Critical Incident service, has been part of Seed’s complement of services since 2000.
Essentially, Trauma Support is about providing psychological first-aid. After traumatic events doctors will treat the obvious visible wounds, trauma support is about treating what’s not seen.
Any traumatic event leaves a sight, a sound, a touch, a smell or a taste – associative triggers that can leave people vulnerable to re-experiencing unexpected emotional trauma any time these triggers are set off by those associations. Our trauma support teams help defuse these events so people are less vulnerable to those future triggers.
How does the service work?
The first part of our service takes place before any event occurs. We work alongside organisations helping ensure they have policy and procedures in place for the care of staff affected by such events.
We help our clients ensure these are written down and that they are owned and understood by the organisation – and that they all know how to activate the service should the need arise.
When a critical incident does occur, the process is a simple one:
- - The service is accessed through a 24-hour freephone number
- An immediate needs assessment is done over the phone (assessing factors such as the - nature of the incident, the number of people involved, and ongoing risk)
- We determine the urgency and timeframe of the response that’s needed and arrange for our responders to attend the site (in most cases we’re usually on the road within minutes of the call).
- Our responders meet the designated client contact at the site and, following a quick briefing, begin the processing of defusing with those affected by the event.
- This is done either in a group, where there are a number of people impacted, or one to one where appropriate, and typically takes 20-40mins - an hour at the most with a large group.
- People receive some supporting material to take away before we ensure they’re safe to go home.
- Finally we follow up with a phone call to each individual 48 hours later and then again 30 days later.
While many employees do have great support, we’re finding that many of them just need 20 mins to let their guard down. Our Trauma Support service creates this opportunity. We work alongside other agencies and the various emergency services and also refer people to other support services as necessary.
The defusing process is designed to help people stabilise their emotions and return to their normal state of emotional wellbeing as soon as possible. The ‘Defuse’ part of the process, often referred to as psychological first aid, is a narrative practice - as we tell stories we see ways of moving forward.
Acknowledging the impacts of the event is a key part of this process. Much of the process is simply enabling people to talk and listen, and to feel supported and heard. In essence our role is simply to listen, support, educate and move out.
We all need to go through the grieving process in our way. This service doesn’t take that away, it simply provides organisations with a tool to ensure no-one in their care is crippled by the process.
It’s deceptively simple, yet needs to be done by trained people and it’s been proven time and time again.
Changing perceptions
“There’s a real move away from only seeing ‘big bang’ crises as critical incidents,” Sandra comments.
“Employers used to focus only on the event to determine whether their staff might need extra support. Today employers seem to focus much more on their people and the unique triggers and needs that they have.”
Traditionally Trauma Support and Critical Incident services have been primarily associated with, and understood by, heavy industry such as rail, freight, and large scale factories where risk of physical trauma is obviously apparent.
Today clients will activate Seed’s critical incident service for a range of scenarios other than traditional emergency events.
“This can include examples such as the death of a colleague in a workplace – expected or otherwise. Our role then is to help employers identify the line between normal grief and excessive critical incident grief so they can add additional support as appropriate,” Sandra adds.
“It’s about investing in the ongoing wellbeing of your staff and managing the potential for longer term impacts.
Seed is finding that today’s workplaces are less inclined to view these forms of staff care as ‘some sort of airy-fairy nonsense’. The view that people just have to ‘get over it’ is increasingly something of the past.
Employers increasingly seem to understand that we bring the whole of ourselves to our workplaces. That has led to another trend which is that ‘near misses’ are now being a source for activating our trauma support services as well.
There is a greater acknowledgement of the impact of critical incidents on individuals and greater recognition of the whole employee. This has led to much greater credibility and appreciation for these services among clients, and this increase in credibility has made it much easier for people to access support without being seen as unable to cope.
It’s about re-empowering people. No organisation, workplace, or industry is immune and it’s too late to build an ark after it’s started raining. Trauma support is like an insurance policy for your staff, but it needs to be in place before the event occurs.
“This is a proven service, both locally and internationally. We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback from our clients, but there is very little actual contemporary research in this field so we’ve decided to do something about that too,” Sandra explains.
“We initiated a significant research project in this area with Victoria University’s Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Tony Taylor. This will be a first in New Zealand. It’s been two years’ worth of research and the results will be in our hand in the next couple of months, so we’ll share more about this soon,”
If you would like to talk with Sandra or any of the team about Seed and it’s Trauma Support service for critical incidents, they’d love to hear from you. You can contact them using any of the details on the “Contact Us” page.
