
Crisis Management
Skills for Emergency Responders
The challenges of the line of work that emergency responders so courageously sign up for is only too apparent. Police, fire and emergency responders are often the first on scene at horrific, challenging, and dangerous events. Often, the demands of the work require responders to leave one traumatic call and proceed immediately to another without adequate time to process, recover or decompress in between.
The basic duties of these individuals essentially require them to witness the worst moments of our lives with strength, dignity, and professionalism. We rely on them in our darkest moments and then expect them to return to normal as soon as they clear the scene. Based on the increasing rates of depression and suicide across disciplines, it is increasingly apparent that our emergency responders are in crisis.
In 2018, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) published a bulletin on the mental health of first responders.
According to SAMSHA, there continue to be concerning trends among our professional emergency responder population. One study cited reports that 30% of first responders develop conditions such as depression, critical incident stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The number of reported suicide attempts and deaths in firefighter and law enforcement professions continues to climb, with some estimates reporting up to 300 emergency responders dying by suicide every year.
There are increased calls to actions on a global scale to address the mental health needs of our emergency responders. Anchorpoint Response is proud to stand beside those who serve our heroes by offering evidence-based training in individual and group crisis intervention. We know that the lives of our first responders are too valuable to be subjected to the “flavor of the month” in psychological interventions and have dedicated our time and resources to providing training in specific techniques and research-backed models.
What sets Anchorpoint Response apart from other training centers is our dedication to meeting your needs. Our critical incident response facilitators are dedicated to providing world-class training to your department with optimized training times for rotating shift workers. Based on the needs of your department, we will work with you to find alternate start and end times for any of the courses we offer to best accommodate the health and wellbeing of the men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting ours.
The Responder I and II courses we offer are taught by an International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) approved instructor and include 1.3 and 1.4 General Continuing Education Units (CEUs) through the University of Maryland Baltimore County Training Centers. The two courses, Assisting Individuals in Crisis (Responder I) and Group Crisis Intervention (Responder II), were developed specifically for first responders and is considered among the leading crisis intervention models in the world. Anchorpoint Response gladly offers each of these courses as a stand-alone program based on the needs of your department, or as part of the crisis intervention series, we have developed for remote industries, beginning with Awareness Level and concluding with the Operations or Coordinator Level programs.
Please contact us today to learn more about how we can help bring these life-saving trainings to your department.
Contact us – we’d love to hear from you!
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Training from the BACK of the Room comes to Anchorpoint
Over the last week, our training manager, Katja Hurt, has been braving the sweltering east coast temperatures to bring Training From the BACK of the Room to Anchorpoint Response and the Pacific Northwest. Training from the BACK of the Room, or
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Making Resilience Skills Accessible to Children
Dr. George Everly is a highly respected author and researcher with groundbreaking work in resilience, crisis intervention, and disaster response. Dr. Everly's impressive biography draws the attention of many in the mental health world, especially in caring for the first