International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
By: Patty Stewart McCord, Executive Director
The Saskatchewan Critical Incident Stress Management Network provides education, training, resources and peer support to all branches of public safety and healthcare workers throughout Saskatchewan. We are a young organization with charitable status that is building relationships between existing teams through sharing of resources, ICISF instructors, peer support teams and the most current information in the field of crisis management services and disaster mental health.
Our Board of Directors include representation from police services, fire departments, EMS and Healthcare. Together we provide the highest standard of training and resources available throughout western Canada. We have partnered with ICISF – Canada and the Alberta Critical Incident Peer Network to provide a standardized approach consistent with recommendations for best practices in education and training as well as developing really well trained crisis intervention teams. Although COVID changed our plans to host an ICISF Regional Conference in 2020, we will undoubtedly be planning one in Saskatchewan sometime in late 2021 or 2022. We rely on these regional conference to provide a variety of courses and instructor training for organizations as they develop sustainable CISM and Peer Support programs. Currently our Network Instructor Team can teach a variety of ICISF courses that provide opportunities to broaden skills and bring together teams from around the province to learn together.
#strongertogether
The philosophy of our Network is to create relationships between groups with specific backgrounds and skills for the purpose of providing critical incident stress management and peer support. Saskatchewan has had some challenging traumatic events in the last several years that have highlighted the need for teams to work together and support one another. When peer support teams don’t know who’s “in the field”, it’s easy for someone to be missed due to the lack of coordination of services. It isn’t uncommon for a number of “helpers” to be available, but if their skills differ, people in need of support may be overlooked because skills don’t match the needs of the group. We have found ways to collaborate in our work, and also in our responses, which enhances the experience for everyone involved. We have partnered with the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs, the voice of the volunteer fire departments in Saskatchewan, to provide CISM support for all rural volunteer fire departments. We also have established working relationships with Provincial EMS, Wildfire Management, Conservation Officers, Parks and Recreation, Saskatoon Fire Department, Saskatoon and Regina Police Services and provincial Correction Services in order to support one another in a more collaborative way.
#pandemicpandimonium
Who knew we could teach an ICISF course online?! It’s been a whole new experience to learn Zoom and Webex and other presentation platforms! But we’ve got to admit, with a little creativity, and a quick course in Zoom, we’ve learned a bit about teaching virtually! It won’t be forever, but it’s good to know there’s an option when the need is urgent. We’ve also found that there is a great need to provide education in cumulative stress, compassion fatigue, resilience, self-care and other topics which will be part of our mandate in 2021. We will also begin offering online training for teams as refreshers and as soon as this pandemic is under control, we will begin our face to face training again.
#weareadaptable
Currently our health guidelines are no more than 10 people in a room, which makes for a small class size. If we’re closer than 6 feet between us, we all wear masks. There is great concern for transmission of COVID and people are taking it seriously in this prairie province. Although crisis intervention continues, we are doing more of it online through Zoom or phone calls. We are also looking at other ways to extend our capacity to work together without creating health and safety challenges for the groups we are instructing. We have taught a small group face to face before these new restrictions came into place, and we will continue to work within the provincial guidelines for training and response. We know this isn’t forever, but it is what we will do for now.
#theskyisthelimit
So where do we go from here? We intend to collaborate with Canadian Institute of Public Research and Treatment (CIPSRT) and ICISF – Canada to develop a program that supports families and spouses of public safety and healthcare workers in our province. It will include education, resources and peer support. We also intent to host regular training throughout the province to bring the peer support programs to those who live in rural areas. The bridge between crisis intervention and mental health services is growing too. The reputation of well-established CISM programs has made a big difference in this collaboration.
We look forward to providing training in resilience, healthy lifestyles and healthy coping to reinforce resilience and wellbeing for all public safety and healthcare providers in Saskatchewan. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bolster resilience at the beginning of a career instead of trying to catch up throughout the years of work? That is our ultimate goal…to have “healthy helpers” at the end of a challenging career.
It is a privilege to do this work…but more than that, it is an honor to help support those who serve in public safety and healthcare.
See you on the streets! Stay well!
The SK CISM Network
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International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)3 Non Profit