By Brian Bennett, Ontario Division CISM Facilitator (brian.bennett@skipatrol.ca), Hélène Fortier, Quebec Division CISM Coordinator (helene.fortier@skipatrol.ca) and Sandra Williams, Mountain Division CISM Coordinator (sandraw2@telus.net)
CISM in the CSP
The CSP has had critical incident stress management available in some regions for the past 25 to 30 years including Mountain Division and Central Zone in Ontario Division. For the past several years the CSP have been working to develop a program of support resources for members after involvement in a critical incident that results in critical incident stress. This includes a team of peer members in many zones across the country who are trained to respond after tough calls. To date, more than 250 CSP members have taken training in critical incident stress management, with more than 60 in French in Quebec and New Brunswick.
What is a critical incident?
A critical incident is any event that causes a strong emotional reaction, with the potential to interfere with a person’s ability to function – an incident that has the ability to overwhelm an individual’s normal coping mechanisms. These may include serious injury or death of a co-worker, mass casualty incidents, death of children or adolescents, loss of patient life, incidents that attract extensive media coverage, incidents where responders know the victim, and any incident that is charged with profound emotion.
What is critical incident stress?
When patrollers respond to a difficult or traumatic accident, they may be affected adversely by the incident to some degree. These situations can be very much outside of our realm of normal and dealing with them afterwards can be challenging. Sometimes there can be difficulty sleeping, there may be nightmares or recurring nightmares, and sometimes we can’t stop thinking about the incident and replaying in our mind the should have, could have and would haves. Sometimes alcohol or drugs get abused, sometimes our relationships with families are affected. These are all signs that the incident has had a negative impact.
Critical incident stress debriefing and defusing (individual and group)
We have found that when patrollers can talk about the incident, sharing their thoughts that occurred during the incident and their reactions to the incident, it unquestionably helps in healing. The CSP has patrollers trained to help guide these structured conversations. It works. It works to help mitigate symptoms, facilitate closure, and return to function.
Critical incident stress management, or CISM, is a comprehensive integrated systematic multi-component set of interventions that can be provided to support ski patrollers and others who have been involved in critical incidents. The main training and certification organization of choice has been the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation or ICISF.org and its intervention tools.
Crisis intervention is not psychotherapy; rather, it is a specialized acute emergency mental health intervention which requires specialized training. As physical first aid is to surgery, crisis intervention is to psychotherapy. Crisis intervention is sometimes called emotional first aid.
High level goals when delivering CISM support
- Increase awareness.
- Decrease stigma.
- Increase utilization of resources.
Why should you consider completing CISM training?
These courses prepare you to be an effective member of the CISM team by developing and practicing skills to support patrollers during a critical incident. We provide you with the knowledge, training, tools, and practice, to help those that help others. Our teams psychological or emotional first aid for those that may have physical, emotional, cognitive, or behavioural signs and symptoms because of critical incident stress.
These courses are designed for anyone who desires to increase their knowledge of individual (one-on-one) or group crisis intervention techniques to support the ski patrol and other industries as may be applicable.
How to complete CISM training?
To become a CISM or peer support team member, there are courses held throughout the CSP.
There are group crisis intervention and assisting individuals in crisis courses in Central Canada. There are defusing – group and individual interactions and debriefing courses held in Western Canada, primarily throughout Mountain Division.
These are 1.5 to three days in length, in person or virtual.
The CSP has three members as approved instructors through the ICISF (noted on their Yeti profiles):
• Brian Bennett in Ontario Division (brian.bennett@skipatrol.ca).
• Hélène Fortier in Québec Division (helenefortier@skipatrol.ca).
• Sandra Williams in Mountain Division (sandraw2@telus.net).
Training can also be taken through other sources. There is a nominal cost for the courses in some areas, apart from Mountain Division where there is no cost to CSP members.
Need supports because you’re experiencing critical incident stress?
Each division or province has a CISM lead that patrollers, zones, and patrol leaders can contact if they have questions or are looking for critical incident support and resources.
These contacts are:
• Don Milner don.milner@skipatrol.ca (Pacific South Division).
• Sandra Williams sandra2@telus.net (Mountain Division).
• Ernie How ernie.how@skipatrol.ca (Saskatchewan Division).
• Lori Natuik lori.natuik@skipatrol.ca (Manitoba Division).
• Brian Bennett brian.bennett@skipatrol.ca (Ontario Division).
• Hélène Fortier helene.fortier@skipatrol.ca (Quebec Division).
• Julia Murphy julia.murphy@skipatrol.ca (Atlantic East Division).
This post is also available in: French