Tri-County Critical Incident Stress Management

Application for Membership.pdf               Member's Debriefing Report Form.pdf

By definition, our work is high stress.  Yet, we love that we do and each of us is privileged to serve.  The Tri-County Critical Stress Management team is here to serve you.

Some events tax our capacity to cope with- the death or tragic injury of a child, a co-worker, a prolonged incident with multiple casualties, and so on.  We know from experience, if you want to last in the filed, talking about the event helps responders put the pieces- and ourselves-back together and back on the street.  Our motto is “Our team keeps your team on the job.”  Many of our debriefers got trained because we benefited from a debriefing. 

The Tri-County CISM team significantly expanded our number of peer debriefers.  This has enabled us to continue actively serving EMS and hospital workers, fire fighters, law enforcement officers and 911 dispatchers in the wake of extremely stressful incidents.

Who we are:

The Tri-County Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Team is comprised of current or retired volunteer and paid emergency response professionals.  We are trained in peer-to-peer group CISM- a proven, confidential process to talk about those though calls.  All of our services are free.  We are all volunteers.  We are not psychotherapists.  If we think someone needs more help than we can offer, we make a referral.  This is rare, as most people benefit from the process.

What we can offer you agency:

·            Trained peer debriefers after a critical incident

·            Trained peer diffusers on scene or at the station immediately after an incident or during a prolonged incident

·            Follow-up meetings or one-on-one talks

·            Resources to prepare for commemorations or anniversaries of difficult incidents

·            Referrals to professional counselors if warranted

·            Speakers a your meetings about CISM and how to pro-actively deal with unique demands of our jobs

When we respond:

We have a team member on-call, ready to alert the rest of the CISM team, 24/7/365.  Most debriefings are scheduled a few days or a week after the incident.  This allows is to ensure an expanded team for the debriefing.  If you have an urgent request, we will do our best to put a team in the field ASAP.  We have debriefers throughout the Tri-County area.

Where we serve:

Tri-County CISM is available to all agencies in Steuben, Schuyler and Chemung counties.  We have no office.  We come to you.

Why we do this:

We get it.  We’ve been there.  We’ve seen our colleagues burn out.  We know that each of you is too precious and had too much training invested, to let you slip away from something we can help you get through.  Sometimes no amount of training or years of service can prepare is for that one bad call.  Remember that no one is alone in this business.  We are here for you and your co-workers.