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Critical Incident Stress Debriefing in the Workplace

Marie Malek-Robinson, CEAP, SAP

Illinois Department of Transportation

2300 South Dirksen Parkway

Springfield, Illinois 62764

A growing need for Critical Incident Stress Debriefings (CISD) is due to the rise in the incidents of workplace trauma and other critical events. At the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) our comprehensive program is designed to assist employees in coping with the impact of unpredictable incidents.

A sudden traumatic event that produces intense emotional reactions and has the potential to interfere with individual and organizational functioning is defined as a Critical Incident. On-the-job events or situations that occur suddenly and are often outside the control of the individual employee can include: line-of-duty deaths, serious line-of-duty injuries, employee suicide or sudden death away from work, disasters, events that attract intense media attention, or events that seriously threaten the lives or health of responders. are defined as Critical Incidents.

The CISD, as developed by Mitchell (Mitchell and Everly, 1995), is a confidential, nonjudgmental, evaluative discussion of thoughts, reactions, and feelings resulting from an incident. It mitigates the impact of stress by allowing everyone involved to ventilate his or her feelings.

We will discuss and demonstrate in this session actual critical incidents that occurred at IDOT, how the plan was developed to assist our employees, putting the plan in to action, what makes it work, and the benefits derived by both employer and employee of getting back to normal as quickly as possible.