The legacy of 2009

Richard Kasperczyk
Managing Director

This year was ushered in by the bushfires in Victoria just as most of us were returning to work, getting ready for business. The full impact of what unfolded in early February took a while to sink in as personal stories of miraculous survival or unimaginable tragedy began to emerge. This situation put the Global Financial Crisis into perspective, and the community rallied together to help either practically or financially as never before.

Employers responded with the offer of practical and emotional support which led some to review their critical incident response systems. Many were asking the question – how do we effectively support our staff who were exposed to trauma - through a debriefing service, grief counselling, by offering more resources for their tasks, or just acting compassionately? The answer of course depends on the individual situation and need, but the same questions were being asked throughout the year, as our employees have been exposed to various other critical incidents.

It seemed to me, that more managers have been sensitised to the need for emotional support and to their responsibility of taking the psychological health of their staff seriously. But the sorts of questions that are being asked when they face a distressed employee need to have clear and well thought out answers based on evidence of what is effective in those situations. It is too late then to ask the questions; the managers need to know the answers and be informed by well thought out policies and easy-to-follow processes.

Some incidents that cause distresses to staff members result from mass disasters, some are personally life threatening, some are traumatic but not life threatening and still others are associated with profound grief. While routine debriefing is no longer recommended by research, employers need to respond and provide appropriate support to their employees. With this in mind, we have published a Critical Incident White Paper to update you on current thinking in the area of debriefing and suggest a new approach to policy in this area of people management. It can be accessed from this ezine.

We recommend for some situations a voluntary debrief is useful to reduce uncertainty, provide important information, reduce further risk and demonstrate public support. For some, personal grief counselling is more appropriate. For all of them practical organisational support, offer of professional support, and monitoring is recommended.

As this memorable year is ending, we trust that you will use this opportunity to review your preparedness for managing psychological health in response to critical incidents in your organisations. Also, we know it is helpful to engage in some psychological preparedness for possible situations involving anxiety, particularly for those in emergency and human services sectors where their likelihood is high. For this purpose we have prepared a tip sheet which will be forwarded to all our clients soon.

We wish you a well deserved break and time to recharge your own emotional energy and look forward to a new era of the 2010's, full of promise and mystery.

Richard K

© ResolutionsRTK 2009