The Issues of Crisis Intervention - Term Paper Example

Crisis Intervention This term paper highlights the issues of crisis intervention. For handling and to overcome various critical incidents and situations different strategies of crisis intervention is used. Crisis is become very frequent in the present world. Therefore effective strategies must be ready to deal to those critical situations. This paper describes different theories and models used in managing crisis. Sometimes crisis results in creating trauma in people or individual. This paper focuses on such incident. The attack of 9/11 in New York created a huge impact in the lives of people. Many people got traumatized for that crisis. In this term paper strategies of crisis interventions which were implemented in that time are mentioned. Introduction The word crisis means turning point or decision. It has a strong relationship with future of an individual or a system. Crisis intervention has a significant value in handling different crisis situations by helping people in various settings. Crisis can be dangerous, costly etc. Lives of many people are affected by it. It is very much essential to develop a clear understanding of crisis and its related issues to learn how to save people and different resources in such situations. There are various methods of crisis intervention which acts as a guide to deal natural or manmade crisis. This stressful circumstance creates a huge impact on people. Crisis intervention by skilled person helps to change critical situation into comparative smooth one. In this critical moment significant decisions and changes are made through the process of crisis intervention which can be constructive or destructive. It is conceptual framework, used for facing different challenges. Historical overview Crisis intervention was started in 1940. Lindermann started this by introducing work on bereavement and grief after the incident of Coconut Grove Club Fire. This incident happened in Boston. During 1960 and 1970 theories of crisis intervention was much elaborated and many centers were developed to for preventing suicide. Various new concepts were developed to improve the service of crisis intervention. Innovations were done to improve and develop crisis intervention practices. In the last few years huge efforts were given to evaluate crisis intervention theories. In the beginning crisis intervention developed to give response in such situations where immediate co operations are required for many people. Literature review According to the author Albert R. Roberts is an effective process to handle all types of critical situations and incidents in extremely disordered conditions. This situations or incidents often results in creating psychological trauma. By the process of crisis intervention psychological care is provided to victims and assists them to return in their normal life by different negative impacts of trauma. The process of crisis intervention differs in many cases. According to that strategies are made to overcome the crisis. Programs of crisis intervention and its strategies can restrict the impact of acute crisis. It maximizes opportunities for stabilizing and resolving critical situations. Practices and programs of crisis interventions have changed continuously with time and need. The author has mentioned that crisis management team, crisis response team, stabilization team has developed a lot in the recent years to handle critical situations very effectively. Suicide prevention program and maintaining 24 hour crisis management hotline serviced is developed to manage different incidents related to self destruction. Many NGO are taking initiatives in this type of works. Many crises are highly influenced by life threatening incidents like motor vehicles crashes, airplane crash, different accidents, drug overdose, sexual assault, murder, criminal homicide etc. These critical events and situations often becomes a turning point in the life of an individual. Crisis intervention is considered as a treatment to save resources and living being. Day by day this process is gaining its importance for the increased number of crisis and accidents. Use of these treatments has become very widespread (Roberts, 2000). As per the writers Richard James and Burl Gilliland crisis intervention process requires effective and efficient people for handling critical situations. Specific interventions are developed according to specific crisis. Good therapies of crisis interventions create the ability to change situations. Unlimited supply of crisis has contributed in the development of different decisions and approaches to handle critical situations. In this process Crisis managing workings need to have the skill of listening and responding. Many workshops and training sessions are organized to improve crisis management system. Crisis intervention model is an important tool used to manage critical situations. Many professional people provide assistance in this process. Crisis can be private events or public events. In private events individual or family life gets affected like suicide, divorced, death etc. In public events a group of individuals and society gets affected like natural disaster, plane crash etc. Critical situations sometimes get more complicated by the interruption and intrusions of media. For handling such situations the victims are interviewed immediately to know about the crisis in details. By this process people can understand about the impact of the incident on victims. Crisis intervention process helps to stabilize the victims and mobilizes different resources for building and supporting different networks for normalizing situations. By effective process of crisis intervention the information of crisis can be provided in an early stage so that the victims can take necessary precautions according to that. Assisting the people suffered crisis helps to develop positive feeling among them and make them confident to lead their normal life. It enhances their capacity to perform independent functions. Practical strategies of crisis intervention are formed on the basis of real problems of the victims. The authors highlights that many beneficial outcomes are generated for this process. In traumatic events the ability to share emotions is an important step in recovering from crisis. Sharing the horror and fearful critical incidents helps the victim to understand the impact of the incidents. Social support and different networks plays an important role in overcoming different critical situations. Traumatic events lead to various changes in the behavior of an individual’s like irritability, nervousness, mood swings, flashback of the event, insomnia, isolation, headaches, deterioration of physical conditions etc. Security has become an important issue in this field. According to the author Neil Thompson major phase in crisis intervention occurs immediately after the crisis happens usually within 48 hours. This phase is involved in providing security service, defusing crisis, providing emotional aid and stabilizing the situations. Crisis counseling plays a vital role in handling the disaster. Counseling of the victims takes places after some days or a week of the crisis. In is implemented by the social workers or psychiatrists for improving mental health condition of victims. They use various models and theories according to the situation of the victims. There are many interventions program developed to deal with modern critical situations. From a crisis people can learn many thing Crisis intervention helps to implement those learning in a very positive way so that people can be conscious of those events and circumstances in future (Thompson, 2011). Evaluation of the use crisis intervention The attack in the World Trade Center of New York on 11th September 2001 is one of the famous traumatic incidents of the world. Four American passenger planes were hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists. It was a suicidal attack. Two planes were crashed into the south and North towers of World Trade Center of new York. Both the towers of 110 stored collapsed into debris within two hours. The incident caused huge fire and smoke. Significant damages occur in the adjacent buildings of WTC. Total 2996 people died in that incident including common people and all the hijackers. U.S.A suffered a huge loss for this crisis. It created a huge negative impact in its political, social and economic condition of the state. For handling this critical situation the country undertook crisis intervention processes (Castellano and Plionis, 2006). The major three different intervention model used by U.S.A for handling this situation are management of stress in critical incidents, first aid providing psychological support and emergency management system by federal government. These intervention models were targeted to large civilian population of the state. In crisis intervention process, the psychological first aid service was implemented to meet the need of mental health of victims. Psychological first aid (PFA) was introduced by institute of medicine. This model helped the victims by providing comfort and support to them. This model contributed a lot in the recovery process of victims. It provided them necessary information to improve their mental health condition. After the incident of 9/11 this model acted as an emotional first aid to the people. The New Jersey State Police (NJSP) played a vital role in emergency management of that critical situation. NSJP was involved in recovery and rescue operation after the attack for 24hours for a period of 10days. The team members of NSJP analyzed the situational needs and kept every essential item which was required during the process of crisis intervention. They were responsible to undertake major responsibilities for proving psychological aid to the victims. They followed different phases to recover people from accident place (Myer, 2001). NSJP implemented assessment, stabilization; communication, triage and connection phase in their crisis invention model. They provided a strong mental support to those people who were highly affected by this attack. Remarkable counseling effort was also given by them. The victims were given moral support which helped them to recover from this tragic incident. NSJP maintained a strong communication process both with the victims and with government and higher officers who played an important role in handling that critical situation. Different clinical and medical assistance were provided to the victims by U.S government. Tactical interventions were made for maximizing clinical effectiveness. Stress management of 9/11 attack was done by implementing different strategies just after the occurrence of this incident. First the individuals were taken out from their psychological traumas which to some extent relived them from the stress of that incident. Critical incident stress management team (CISM) provided community resilience and community support which are the crucial factors of managing stress. This attack affected lives of many people which created mental and physical health issues in them. CISM also trained the people how to face and deal with such situations. It played a vital role in boosting up the mental strength of the victims and also of the common people. They implemented cop-to-cop program in New Jersey for enforcing laws to deal with this kinds of attacks. For managing the emergency situation the U.S government implemented many new laws and regulations by restricting different policies. Violation of those laws created many problems in the lives of the people residing there. After that incident U.S government made its security system very strong. Different security measures were set up in around World Trade Center and other important business centers. All these strategies of crisis intervention which were implemented by U.S proved beneficial for the country to some extent. It helped to make its security system very strong. These strategies also played a vital role in overcoming this traumatic crisis and recovering people from it. But in some cases those strategies created problems mainly in the lives non American residents. It made its security system so strong that citizens of other countries faced different harassments while moving in and out from the country. Sometimes they have to give justification for their normal acts also. Crisis intervention process also created a negative impact by creating suspicion in the mind of American’s against the people of other nations. But the strategies of stress management and recovering victims from WTC helped to manage that critical situation. Recommendation These incidents tend to disrupt mental health of individuals who are directly or indirectly associated with such man-made disasters. Appropriate crisis intervention techniques had been adopted in 9/11 attack like Federal Emergency Management, critical incident stress management and psychological first aid. The last two techniques were implemented to remove trauma of individuals. It was majorly utilized as a counseling mechanism for victims and their family members. Psychological first aid emerged as a tool for providing service to address mental health needs of individuals. This model was successful in terms of providing comfort, peer support, recovery acceleration, continuous care and promotion of mental health. Crisis incident stress management was focused towards organizing groups for counseling so as to make them comfortable in current scenario. However the major loophole in these crisis intervention mechanisms was in the context of federal emergency management. This aspect was so strictly controlled that it affected local people. After 9/11 attack there was more security measures established specifically against Muslim citizens. This did not prove to be an effective measure since it disrupted lifestyle of citizens. There were strict security measures established across United States and this was done to protect the country from any further attacks. It is recommended that in Federal Emergency Management a theoretical model should have been followed. Gilliland’s six-step model could have been an ideal framework for understanding victim’s condition and adapting best possible measures. This model basically encompasses two aspects – listening and action. Listening can be further classified into three categories like problem definition, ensuring safety to audience and providing required support. On the other hand, action component includes three elements such as evaluating alternatives, making specific plans and obtaining commitment. It is an efficient crisis intervention model. There are no such standards established by this model as it is inclined towards collaborative functioning. This model focuses more on attending, understanding, observing, responding with genuineness, empathy, non-judgment, respect, care, etc. All these factors would have helped the higher authority to enforce security as well as prevent any form of humiliation of citizens. Myer had proposed another crisis intervention technique known as triage assessment system. There are usually four dimensions which are greatly affected by trauma like psychological, physical, spiritual or moral and social. These dimensions can be handled when face-to-face interaction takes place or each of the victims and their family members are met personally. In such traumatic circumstances it is important to provide self-assurance. Techniques could have been improved through arranging a conference where counselors and governmental authority would have met affected individuals or their family members. This kind of mechanism might have given assurance to people that preventive measures are been taken for common benefit and justice shall be given to all victims. As per lessons learned through evaluation of crisis intervention techniques more focus was on future security measures planning rather than overcoming such traumatic situation. Hence techniques could have been more effective if counseling was done more deeply and security mechanisms were implemented without any form of inequality. Conclusion Crisis intervention is a framework which is implemented to deal with different critical situations and incidents. Different theories and models are involved in this process. Those models and theories are implemented according to the circumstances and situations. Crisis can be natural or manmade. In both of these crisis lives and resources are highly impacted. People face very bad situations for crisis which results in traumas. So different strategies are made to recover people from such situation and help them to live their normal life. Frequent occurrence of different types of crisis influenced a lot in formation of new and effective strategies. The attack of 9/11 in World Trade Center of New York created a huge crisis in U.S. Many people died in this incident. The twin towers of New York collapsed within two hours. The country faced a very critical situation at that time. Several people were traumatized after this attack. They were always frightened and were living an abnormal life. Crisis intervention played an effective role at that time. U.S overcomes that traumatic condition by implementing different strategies of crisis interventions. Those strategies helped to recover many people from the accident place. Many people are able to live their normal with the help of those strategies. References Castellano, C and Plionis, E., (2006). Comparative Analysis of Three Crisis Intervention Models Applied to Law Enforcement First Responders During 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from http://cretscmhd.psych.ucla.edu/nola/volunteer/EmpiricalStudies/Comparative%20analysis%20of%20three%20crisis%20intervention%20models%20applied%20to%20law%20enforcement%201st%20responders%20during%20911%20and%20hurricane%20katrina.pdf James, R., and Gilliland, B. (2012). Crisis intervention strategies. Mason: Cengage Learning. Myer, R. A. (2001). Assessment for crisis intervention: A triage assessment model. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Roberts, A. R., (2000). Crisis intervention handbook: Assessment, treatment, and research. Oxford: Oxford university press. Thompson, N., (2011). Crisis Intervention. Retrieved from: http://russellhouse.co.uk/pdfs/Crisisintervention.pdf . Read More