Crisis Debriefing
Mitigate The Impact
Respond to critical incidents in your community.
Discussion about Crisis Debriefing started in 2005, when supervisors expressed concern about debriefing staff after an egregious incident and the secondary traumatic stress they experienced. Out of this foundation came a comprehensive training and external debriefing resource that is still going strong today. This three-day Crisis Debriefing training is available to new or established teams.
Crisis Debriefing Training
An intensive three-day training that is designed to equip human service agencies with the core knowledge and skills needed to provide immediate, practical support to fellow human service professionals following critical incidents. Participants will learn the essential elements of a comprehensive, systematic and multi-component crisis intervention approach, with a strong focus on peer-driven support strategies used within the human services community.
Key concepts within the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) model will be outlined, and participants will leave prepared to facilitate several group crisis interventions - specifically Crisis Management Briefings, Defusings and Critical Incident Stress Debriefings (CISD). The course will also explore the importance of recognizing when additional services are needed and how to make appropriate follow-up referrals.
When your department is operating at its best, staff are taking care of each other and are better able to serve the community. By having personnel trained in Peer Support, members will know the signs to watch for and understand how to handle situations when they are first observed. Members are specifically trained to observe and intervene with many types of issues.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the natures & definitions of a psychological crisis and psychological crisis intervention.
- Understand the Johns Hopkins' resistance, resiliency, recovery continuum.
- Understand the nature and definition of critical incident stress management (CISM), its six factors, and its role as a continuum of care.
- Be familiar with common psychological and behavioral crisis reactions associated with critical incidents.
- Understand and practice individual peer support intervention.
- Understand the mechanisms of action group crisis intervention.
- Understand and practice informational group crisis intervention.
- Understand and practice interactional group crisis intervention.
- Understand principles of strategic planning.
Continuing Education Hours
27 contact hours/2.7 CEUs through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. (ICISF)
Cost to Attend
- Members: $95
- Partial members & nonmembers: $475
Training Dates & Location
- June 15-17, 2026, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CDT
- UW-Stevens Point, 1015 Reserve St., Stevens Point, WI 54481
- Dreyfus University Center, Laird Room (North) for 6/15 & 6/16 and Legacy Room for 6/17
- UW-Stevens Point, 1015 Reserve St., Stevens Point, WI 54481
- October 14-16, 2026, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CDT
- UW-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311
- University Union, Phoenix Room B (Room 213)
- UW-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311
Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Responsibilities
Before, during and after a critical incident, your organization is responsible for duties according to your role.
Pre-Incident Planning & Preparation
Person(s) Responsible: Agency Administrator, Agency Point Person and/or CISM Team, if developed by agency
- Agency leadership support of critical incident stress management and the provision of crisis debriefing and other staff supports
- Developing a strategic response for crisis response
- Developing agency policies, procedures or protocols to
support CISM and Crisis Debriefing, including the
arrangements for activation and assessment of the critical incident and initiation of a crisis debriefing session - Educating staff in critical incident stress and crisis debriefing
- Training agency managers and supervisors in CIS
management principles (including the multiple causes of
critical incident stress, the impact of critical incident stress, and the nature of social support and how best to provide it) and how to conduct a defusing
Immediate Personal Support
Person(s) Responsible: Supervisor
- Demonstrate care and support
- Plan for immediate future
Crisis Management Briefing (CMB)
Person(s) Responsible: Agency Administrator
- Provide information to agency staff
- Control rumors
- Provide coping resources
- Assess further needs of agency staff
- Note: A trained Crisis Debriefer could be asked by Agency Administrator to provide the coping resources, with the Agency Administrator remaining as the lead for the CMB.
Defusing
Person(s) Responsible: Supervisor
- Psychological first aid provided less than 12 hours after the event
- Stabilization
- Clarify circumstances of event
- Ventilation
- Assess needs
- Note: A trained Crisis Debriefer could be asked by Agency Administrator to join the Supervisor in the Defusing with the impacted staff members, with the Supervisor remaining as the lead for the Defusing.
Crisis Debriefing
Person(s) Responsible: Crisis Debriefer
- Structured crisis intervention to facilitate psychological closure and reconstruction
- Ideally provided within 72 hours post-incident, but can be provided up to 14 days post-incident
Follow up & Referral
Person(s) Responsible: Crisis Debriefer
- Follow agency process that is in place
- Crisis Debriefers MUST be aware of the process to support it and staff
- Follow up with individuals and groups following the initial crisis intervention
- Assess need to refer for more intensive treatment
Critical Incident Crisis Debriefing Guidelines
- Critical Incident Stress: an acute stress reaction that produces considerable distress for staff member(s) involved following a critical incident. Examples include:
- Suicide/homicide
- Death of a client (child or adult)
- Egregious incidents
- Physical violence or assault against a worker
- Employee death
- Community-wide tragedy
- Critical Incident Stress Debriefing: a formal and confidential process provided by trained facilitators in a group format to mitigate the impact of a critical incident and to accelerate the recovery process. The average length of a session is 2-3 hours held between 24 hours to 2 weeks after the incident. It is designed to achieve psychological closure. It is not therapy nor is it a long term process. Additional forms of support are often needed after a critical incident debriefing to keep individuals engaged in a recovery process.
- Characteristics of Debriefers
- Don’t need to be mental health professionals
- People who are trusted and respected
- People who are warm, affirming and non-judgmental
- They are competent and adequately trained
- Good communicators; have good listening skills
- Comfortable with people who have strong emotions
- Self-aware; recognize their own limitations and are willing to refer people on for further help
- Understand the work of human services professionals
- Ability to maintain confidentiality
- May be internal or external to the agency, but if internal they are not the immediate supervisor of the person(s) being debriefed
- Strong value around self-care
- Other types of stress: related to day-to-day experiences. These other types of stress require agency support or referral for professional help rather than a formal critical incident debriefing. Supervisor support is critical in addressing these types of stress.
- Secondary Traumatic Stress: the stress from helping or wanting to help a traumatized person
- General Stress: stress that everyone experiences that is resolved within a short period of time
- Cumulative stress: stress that builds up over time and can lead to mental and/or physical problems
- Continued Acute Stress or Post-traumatic Stress: severe distress caused by severe psychological trauma produced by critical incident stress and generally needs professional assistance.
- Examples include:
- Hearing about clients being victimized
- Visually seeing clients with bruises and other injuries
- Hearing about or witnessing self-mutilating behaviors
- Death of a family member or a friend
- Dealing with angry clients or colleagues
- Who can request a debriefing?Because anyone might request a de-briefing, the agency needs to consider having a point person to initiate the referral. That point person would then identify de-briefers either internally or externally and work with the identified de-briefer(s) to determine:
- Whether the situation meets the definition of a critical incident
- How many and who is impacted by the incident
- Who will be involved in the debriefing: will it be just those involved directly or will there also be debriefing for people from other units?
- How the agency needs to support the process: create a safe atmosphere, coverage for workers, communication with staff about the debriefing
- Where people will go for ongoing support
- Whether the debriefing will be voluntary or mandatory
- Characteristics of Agency Point Person
- Trusted by their peers and superiors
- Knowledgeable about critical incident de-briefing
- Knowledgeable about resources for ongoing support (following the de-briefing or in lieu of debriefing)
- Decisive
- Good communication skills
- Ability to maintain confidentiality
External Debriefer Contact List
We're supporting each other. The counties who helped initiate Crisis Debriefing believed it would be beneficial to support one another and be able to call on debriefers trained from neighboring counties to debrief their staff if there was a critical incident. Each county trained in Crisis Debriefing has an assigned point person and an administrative contact that can be contacted for support, if needed.
In order to make this resource possible, the BHTP maintains a contact listing of established agency debriefing teams. Each agency indicates their availability for external debriefing on an annual basis. Upon request, BHTP will provide this contact list to an agency in need, who can then connect with the administrative or point person of their choice.
Example County Policies & Forms
It is important to have policies and procedures in place that can help create the structure for the crisis debriefing process to work. It is up to each agency to decide how they want to develop their policies. Important points to consider are:
- What constitutes the need for a debriefing?
- When is external debriefing needed?
- Identifying staff to be trained.
- Ensuring all staff know who to go to if they feel they need debriefing.
- Incorporating debriefing into new employee orientation.
Is your county new to developing crisis debriefing policies and procedures? Use our online library of crisis debriefing resources from various county agencies to help create your own policies, procedures and forms.
Want to Register?
Reach out to our Training Coordinator, Joanne Tulachka, to indicate your interest in attending a training or developing a Crisis Debriefing team at your agency.