International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
By: Kathy Peters, ICISF Member & Case Manager for Regional Support Associates-Woodstock Hospital
Working with people, families and community partners, Regional Support Associates (RSA) provides people who live with an intellectual/developmental disability with the specialized supports and resources they need. Our vision “People living their best lives in communities they call home”
Over the past decade, RSA has continuously grown in size from a team of approximately thirty to a team of over 60 members. Staff come from many different disciplines providing interdisciplinary supports.
As a Manager with over 40 years of service in the developmental service sector I wanted to bring my experience working as part of a CISM team during my career to RSA. I had experienced the benefits of a Peer Support Team with a previous employer and was able to utilize my skills as a trained CISM provider and believed this would be a welcomed addition to the work done at RSA. Although the work we do is very different than first responders there are many times that we are dealing with people who display aggressive behaviors, support teams working with very complex people, families that are struggling to manage support of their adult child, serious life threatening illnesses and eventual death of parents leaving the family units struggling with their loved one and recently shifting to remote/virtual work versus face to face contact. A CISM team within the organization seemed like a good option for staff support as at times being on the front lines can be difficult.
We are a newly formed and very small team comprised of seven staff that work within RSA. Much of the work we have done to date is developing the team, training of the members, the processes needed within the organization and introduction and education to our colleagues regarding CISM and its benefits.
The biggest hurdle in rolling out a team during a pandemic, in my opinion is to not minimize the stresses we face at work in light of the stresses faced in the world. Our training was conducted virtually with first responders which when hearing their stories makes you question why CISM for our team, we don’t have to go to the scene of an accident, we are not putting out fires but we are supporting some of the most complex people within our communities and a CISM Peer team can be the one source that understands all of this.
As a newly formed team we have not had to put our skills to use to date, however understand the value of ongoing training and practice with these skills and are currently making this our focus along with educational materials for employees to understand CISM. Our wish would be for more services in our field of expertise to embrace CISM as a model for peer support and we could develop a community of practice with likeminded organizations. The value of this type of support cannot be understated!
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International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc is a 501(c)3 Non Profit