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Marlene's Musings

This month's meeting started with Gene sharing emails from our New York contingency. We are all looking forward to hear about your experiences.
During the review of a call last month, a discussion ensued regarding the merits of the "round robin" technique verses the " who arrived first on scene" method in the fact phase. The "round robin" technique is usually fail-safe and is best utilized if you have a variety of agencies or are not real comfortable with a working knowledge of the emergency services involved. The "first on scene" method works well with a smaller same agency group. Additionally, we talked about the parameters of a defusing. Generally peer support personnel lead a defusing and counselors lead in debriefings. This is not set in stone, as defusings are a good way to give our new counselors some hands-on experience.
We also discussed a number of criteria for a debriefing vs. defusing.
* The importance of the "all mighty" introduction. The intro is the same for both a defusing and debriefing. This is where you get the "buy in". It sets the expectations for the group.
* Incidents may require the separation of personnel, depending on their task and/or function on scene. This is defined as the hands on responders vs. the ones in staging or doing a separate task that is not immediately involved in the "life & death" scenario.
* It is critical for the call-up person to get a good gathering of pre-defusing, debriefing information like Who, What, Where, When, How many, Special circumstances, etc.
With this information the call-up person sets up the meeting place and time coordinating the needs of the people with the activated team. This gets challenging with the different shifts for police and fire personnel. Meetings can be premature. Keep in mind the call-up person is getting a good picture from the incident contact person, and needs to determine what is needed (debriefing vs. defusing) and when. Time frames of 24 vs. 48 hours, morning incident vs. late night incident, long drawn out incident vs. short timeframe, condition of rescuers, physical needs may be more important than immediate emotional needs, Etc.
This is what our meetings are about, to continue to develop an awesome team. Everyone has done a great job of stepping up to the plate and filling Dan's SHOES. Thank you all so very much.

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Pointers

After every debriefing, defusing or one-on-one we learn more. The following are some of those points that came out of last months meeting.
Even if a debriefing is requested the" Call-up" needs to take charge and determine if a defusing is to be used instead. Generally a defusing is used if we are called to duty within 3 - 6 hours of the incident. Counselors are not needed for defusing.
If the incident happens in the AM set up something for the PM. If in the PM, call a meeting for the next morning.
When a team member is part of the incident, that person is not part of the team during the meeting. (S)he is treated and cared for as any other member of the event. The INTRO can make or break a defusing/debriefing. Information given during the fact phase is vital to painting a complete picture of the event. Pauses can be directed in the fact phase and are good in the emotional phases to bring people out.
Again, the "Call-up" takes the lead in arranging a defusing/debriefing. If a team member were deployed to an event, (s)he would go to staging and separate from active involvement in the incident. (S)he is the eyes and ears of the "Call-up".

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T-Shirts

The t-shirts are done and done very nice. You can still order yours at this month's meeting or contact Linda at 895.4912 or TUDYE4@aol.com.
They cost only $14.00. That's a deal for a quality shirt.

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ICISF Trainings

For a list of ICISF trainings go to their web site. ICISF, Inc. www.icisf.org 410-750-9600 or 750-9601 fax.

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This Month's Meeting

Our New York Travelers are leading the meeting this month and hopefully we will learn a few new tricks.

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Reminder!

All changes made to the phone list are also recorded on the we site at www.ears.net/bgcism in the secured location. The logon name is bgcism. For the password, give me a call or ask me at the next meeting. Gene