Introducing the Canadian Mountain Community CISM Team
Providing one on one and group interventions to professionals in the Mountain Community following a critical incident.
What is Critical Incident Stress?
Any event that has a traumatic impact sufficient enough to overwhelm the usually effective coping skills of either an individual or a group is classified as a critical incident. Critical Incidents are typically sudden, powerful events that are outside the range of daily human experiences. Because these events can be so sudden and unexpected, even well trained, experienced people can be strongly affected by them.
What is Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM)?
CISM is designed to help reduce the chance of long-term mental health troubles, such as PTSD, after critical incidents. Critical incidents can include injury or death of a client or colleague in the field, multi-casualty incidents, body recovery, suicide of a colleague, or other consequential events.
Trained Peer Responders lead sessions immediately after the incident where the affected group comes together in a supportive, confidential environment to talk about their experiences, roles, and reactions, without blame. CISM can help workers defuse highly charged emotional situations, return them to full productivity, improve mental health, increase morale, and reduce resignations of highly trained professionals from critical incident stress (CIS) symptoms.
Who are Peer Responders?
Peers are people like you.
The thing that makes the Mountain Community CISM team so uniquely effective is that it is comprised of peers – your fellow mountain professionals. They speak the same language, have done the same work, and have felt the same fears. The CISM team is a team of mountain professionals for fellow mountain professionals.
CISM team members are not mental health professionals and they aren’t supposed to be. They are members of your community, supportive ears, and a key step on the post crisis path.
In-person and virtual, group and one on one debriefs.
Our remote team of volunteer peer responders is spread across Canada in mountain communities; from Vancouver Island to the east side of the Rockies, Fernie to Bella Coola, the CISM team serves a massive area of the Canadian mountain community.
Although most of our peers, and call outs, have been in BC and Alberta, we do have the capacity to respond Canada-wide. To provide a timely and cost effective response many of our debriefs are done virtually.
“It takes strength to ask for help, your community supports you.”
— CISM Community Member