Critical Incidents - strategies

3.5   CRITICAL INCIDENTS: STRATEGIES

A critical incident is any event that is overwhelming, threatening, sudden or prolonged.  This may include assult, threats, injury, death, fire or a bomb threat etc.

Viewbank Early Childhood Centre appreciates that a critical incident can be overwhelming and may lead to distress.  This distress can result in a decline in performance and in overall levels of wellbeing.

Involvement in, or exposure to, abnormal workplace incidents can lead a person to experience distress.  It is normal to react emotionally to a critical incident.

Viewbank Early Childhood Centre will work through the following strategies in the workplace environment to help all team members work through a critical incident:

• Preparing workers for a possible critical incident in the workplace (this includes encouraging ALL team members to maintain First Aid training to deal with any medical incident to the best of their ability, and maintaining Hazard and Safety checks to eliminate possible incidents from arising)
• Demobilisation (rest, information and time out – RIT) – this is a way of calming workers following a critical incident and ensuring that their immediate needs are met.  Strategies may include: arranging a meeting for those involved as soon as possible, summarising the incident and clarifying uncertainties, invite questions and discuss issues of concern, show care and support, make short term arrangements to fulfill their work responsibilities
• Debriefing – a structured voluntary discussion to help put an abnormal workplace event into perspective.  It aims to offer clarity about the incident they have experienced and assist them to establish a process for recovery.  This may include talking about: the sequence of events, the causes and consequences, each person’s experiences, normal reactions to the incident and possible follow-up support that may be required.

Where it is believed that a team member or members may have ongoing issues or difficulties from involvement in or exposure to a critical event, Management will work in collaboration with these team members to ensure they receive the appropriate support.

Sources:

-  Workplace Health- Better Health Channel

-  Work-related stress – Better Health Channel

-  www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au

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