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About Our Emergency Response Teams:
Our Crisis Response/ Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Teams
provide 24/7 response to corporations and organizations
that have experienced a traumatic event. The Teams, based
in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin, Texas, can be dispatched immediately to your
location in Texas, the U.S. or internationally. Our Global Crisis Response Team is prepared to deploy to global hot zones within 24 hours of request. Services can be provided in both English and Spanish.
All Team members have extensive training in trauma and disaster response and extensive experience providing "emotional first aid"
to work groups that have been impacted by deaths,
injuries, violence and threats of violence (the latter includes
events ranging from the threatening behavior of an
individual employee, to robberies, threats of terrorism, hostage situations, industrial sabotage, etc.) Our Teams also have been dispatched at times of major
organizational change, such as during company closings,
layoffs, mergers and restructurings.
Photo by Dez Pain
Critical Incidents can produce an unusually intense
stress reaction and can impact the individual's ability to
function in his/her normal work and home environments.
Impaired sleep and concentration can compromise the individual's safety.
Many of the symptoms experienced
after a traumatic event can be frightening, thereby adding
an additional layer of distress during an already difficult period.
Our Crisis Management services are designed to prevent or limit the development of post traumatic stress, to enhance safety and to help employees to resume their normal work and personal activities as quickly as possible.
After a critical incident, organizations that utilize crisis response services can expect fewer employee errors and absenteeism, fewer Workman's Compensation claims, increased employee retention and a quicker return to normal operational functioning, than would be the case without such services.
Immediately following a critical incident, we generally recommend the following:
- Identify those individuals who were directly exposed to the trauma. Insure their safety, by limiting their access to safety sensitive work zones until their needs can be assessed. Provide safe transportation as necessary.
- Identify other individuals, who were not at the scene, but who may have been greatly impacted by the critical incident, in order to assess their immediate needs.
- Assign buddies, if possible, to those who are experiencing significant emotional turmoil and who should not be left alone.
- Make a general workplace announcement with basic facts about the traumatic incident, to begin managing employees concerns and to control rumors.
- Contact a qualified critical incident stress management team and make arrangements for their arrival on-site.
Pre-and Post-Critical Incident Planning and Training Services
Pre- and Post-Critical Incident Consultation Services can assist organizations to decrease both the human and financial costs of traumatic incidents by:
1) Reducing or eliminating the physical and emotional impact of trauma on the employee group, and,
2) Lowering the risk of some types of critical incidents, by identifying and modifying high risk behavioral patterns within the work group (e.g., employee drug and alcohol misuse and abuse ; problematic health practices of night shift workers; lack of employee concern or attention to key safety issues and procedures).
Following a comprehensive assessment, our consultative team will make recommendations to reduce risk, which may include:
- Inclusion of additional employee behavioral health standards in organizational health and safety policy
- Inclusion of a critical incident stress management component to company safety protocols and procedures
- Management and employee critical incident stress management training, that provide behavioral drills of key emergency behavioral health management procedures.
In affiliation with Richard Ottenstein, Ph.D., CEO of the Workplace Trauma Center, we have developed a series of industry specific employee trainings, to assist business and industry to reduce both the incidence and the impact of traumatic incidents that occur in the workplace:
Dr. Ottenstein's Armed Robbery Survival Skills Training provides bank employees with the behavioral skills necessary to negotiate robbery as safely as possible. As this training incorporates a review of bank policy and procedures for robbery, it can be utilized as an enhanced version of an organization's new hire and annual safety training (federally mandated for banks). This training has been modified to address robbery risks in other industries, ranging from hotel and beverage, to convenience stores, to electronics retailers.
Ms. Cohen and Dr. Ottenstein, have also developed an Industrial Safety and Wellness Training, to reduce employee risk of accident and injury in manufacturing, construction, production and processing plants, as well as to prepare workers to respond to emergencies effectively and with the least traumatization possible.
Industry specific trainings can be developed to accommodate the needs of any requesting industry.
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