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.
Training
We offer a three-day Crisis Debriefing training to new or established teams.
ROLES & Responsibilities
Access a helpful guide to understand critical incident stress management (CISM) responsibilities, and how to structure a crisis debriefing team within your agency.
external DEBRIEFING
Already have an established crisis debriefing team but need help from an external agency? We can help.
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: 21 contact hours/2.1 CEUs through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. (ICISF)
Cost to Attend
- Members: $70
- Partial members and nonmembers: $270
Training Dates & Location
- April 7-9, 2026, 8:30am - 4:30pm CST
- UW-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311
Registration
Future Training Dates & Location
- June 15-17, 2026, 8:30am - 4:30pm CST
- Location TBD
- October 13-15, 2026, 8:30am - 4:30pm CST
- UW-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311
Registration
Interested in the next session?
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. Familiarize yourself with the Critical Incident Crisis Debriefing Guidelines to get yourself started.
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.