EAP Critical Incident Response is a distinct specialty.

• Licensed professional

• EAP savvy- CEAP preferred

• Dual client environment- balancing the needs of employees and organizations. Even in crisis.

• Flexible and adaptable to varied workplace cultures (open and closed systems)

• Conceptualizes and operates within the Response Continuum 

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• Deploys a two-stage intervention phase

1. Safety and Stability- Primary focus. Psychological First Aid (PFA) based interventions

2. Resilience- Once stabilized, utilizing interventions designed to empower organic and workplace sources of resilience to achieve personal and organizational resilient outcomes.

• EAP CIR designed interventions​

  • 1:1/1:2- PFA and strength-based focus ​

  • Leadership Meetings- engaging leadership into the CIR process adds a tremendous source of resilience for employees and the organization as a whole.

  • Groups

    • PFA​

    • Grief/Resilience

    • Corporate Briefing

    • RALLI

    • Resilience

  • Onsite outreach- Mobile/visible PFA ​

  • Handouts- Consistent with MRA and EAP brand

  • Referrals- Professionals with clinical skills to assess and refer within the EAP milieu and CIR operation.

  • Virtual CIR

 

 

Most CIR/CISM practitioners have been trained to deliver crisis intervention to individuals i.e. civilians within the community, and/or specific workers like first responders. These approaches are peer-based and free.   They can offer great value when deployed within the environments they were designed for, i.e., closed environments (first responders) where peers provide a natural connection, or large, open, civilian impact that can occur during natural disasters or mass casualty events. There are targeted trainings for these types of scenarios. CISM for first responders and similar closed systems, and the Red Cross for civilian response. However expanding these models to all workplaces borders on irresponsible.  History has proven this. For instance, CISM is a first responder model. It was designed and tweaked to penetrate the closed systems of Fire and Police departments. Workforces that are resistive to mental health care and cultures that prefer to solve their problems within. 

 

Most workplaces, however, present a diverse, unique culture/milieu. They are open systems, meaning they are not an isolated, self-contained machine, but a complex organism in constant, dynamic interaction with its external environment.  Rather than focusing solely on internal workflows and rigid hierarchies as in closed-systems, an open system workplace recognizes that the organization's survival, adaptability, and well-being depend on continuous exchanges with the outside world.  Why does anyone think that  bringing a closed system based intervention model into an open system client will work?

 

Open system workplaces also have remote and hybrid workforces. EAP CIR Responders are trained in this as well.

Open system workplaces want licensed professionals that will interact and engage in a manner that is akin to their organizational culture. Where trust and partnership is already established through their EAP. It's that simple. It's our (EAP and RDA) job to bring it to them.​

 

Consistent with MRA, the EAP CIR Responder does not work in isolation. They represent the EAP. EAPs have choices in their CIR network development.

 

1. They can have a network or staff of subject matter experts and interventionists;

2. They can have a network of "good enough", that is, be present and use basic crisis intervention skills to impacted individuals;

3. Pay for and trust a third party network that has their own CIR training guidelines or

4. EAPs create their own CIR version delivered through in-house "training" on what their expectations are for CIR delivery.

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All of these options exist in today's EAP. While #1 is increasing, it still is behind the other choices EAPs are making and the EAP industry is becoming more accountable for it.

The frequency of Critical Incidents are not going down.  They remain constant with some types of incidents increasing. Expectations by workplaces, however,  are increasing. This is no longer a luxury benefit that they hope never has to be used. Rather they want a resilient workforce that is prepared before, during and after.

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Get Trained. Contact me with questions.  Robert

 rdintveld@gmail.com

 

 

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