5 Day Training Programme for DP World.
Course Trainer: Mr John Crimmins. (Doctoral Candidate).
Psychosocial risk factors have become more prevalent in today’s workplace, posing a threat to job performance. A positive work environment, psychosocial support, the ability to cope with stress, and skills and knowledge are all linked to more successful coping.
According to a report by the Institution of Employment Studies, 9 out of 10 people will experience trauma at some point in their lives. One-third of these will develop PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A traumatic event is unavoidable and can occur to anyone, including your employees. However, preparing for it and taking appropriate action when it occurs can help reduce the trauma’s effects.
What exactly is trauma, and how does it affect your employees? Trauma is defined as a specific event or series of events that elicit an intense emotional response in a person. This deliberate emotional response can manifest as helplessness, fear, horror, uncontrollable crying, or even fainting.
There are a number of symptoms that indicate trauma.
- Flashbacks
- Anxiety persists
- Easily distracted.
- Acute trepidation
- Sleeplessness.
Trauma Support Programme
Trauma affects a person’s psychology and can have a negative impact not only on an employee’s work performance but also on their personal life. It limits an employee’s ability to be creative and productive, prevents them from learning and applying themselves at work, and prevents them from making interpersonal connections.
Best practice for dealing with workplace trauma.
Trauma can be triggered by a variety of events, including a close person’s death, suicide, or accident, bullying, harassment, a toxic work environment, acute pressure, overworking, isolation, extreme noise, flashing lights, lock-down, and more.
Every person reacts to trauma in a unique way. The feeling of safety is the first thing that helps pacify a traumatised person or prevents trauma from occurring in the first place.
Trauma is a psychological condition. When trauma triggers are present in the workplace, it is critical for leadership and human resources to collaborate in order to provide their employees with psychology-based support.
CBT Trauma support programme
Peer Support.
Peer support programs can prevent organizational psychological health-related behaviors such as disengagement, absenteeism, and intentions to leave the organization (Whybrow, Jones, & Greenberg, 2015).
Coworkers often provide a familiar outlet for guidance, so the best care and support can often come from within the workplace.
Peer support is a workplace well-being approach that employs the nonclinical strengths and abilities of motivated employees to assist coworkers in times of struggle or personal crisis.
Peer support is not counselling or therapy; it is a way for businesses to provide familiar employee support systems in high-stress environments.
Many employees prefer to share their concerns with a coworker who understands their situation rather than an off-site therapist who is removed from the workplace.
To start a peer support program, an organization must first train employees on how to work with coworkers who have experienced a traumatic event.
CBT Trauma support programme
Training a small cohort of employees to recognize signs of post-trauma symptoms and how to support peers allows them to serve as an empathetic outlet for their coworkers. Coworkers are in a unique position to understand the day-to-day realities of social work. Employee peer support training allows organizations to invest in their human capital.
A peer support team member must exhibit a variety of characteristics that reflect the program’s underlying principles. To begin, it is critical to respect and communicate the confidential nature of the assistance being provided, as well as to respect and communicate personal boundaries for those seeking assistance. Compassion, composure, and trained employees who genuinely care about others and can remain calm under pressure are required for peer support. Active listening skills, rapport building, and fostering trust are qualities that will put those seeking assistance at ease.
CBT model of interventions
CBT is a short-term therapy that helps people to recognise and address negative thought processes and behaviours. It focuses on the here and now rather than the past. It is solution focussed and evidence-based. The aim is to relieve the symptoms of mental health by focusing on how problems are perceived, and how this can affect how people feel, physically and emotionally.
Employees are encouraged to discuss how they think about themselves, other people – work colleagues for example – and the world around them. They are also thought how to think about how their actions affect their thoughts and feelings.
CBT informs us that when we’re feeling low in mood we are more likely to jump to negative conclusions and when we change our thoughts and actions then our feelings will change and improve.
For employees experiencing trauma symptoms CBT can be one of the most effective treatments. According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the most effective psychological treatment for moderate and severe depression.
The CBT model of intervention encourages individuals to act by themselves to achieve their own goals by supporting them to take actions towards those goals. CBT has been found to be effective in improving work-related stress, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, and insomnia. It has also been found to increase work engagement within a working population.
Training Programme for 13 staff Course Outline
This course is designed to teach participants the fundamentals of, CBT and a specific protocol for, one-on-one trauma support counselling. The course is designed for staff who have no experience in dealing with trauma.
Introduction
Peer support is NOT psychotherapy; rather, it is a specialised acute emergency mental health intervention that requires specialised training. As physical first aid is to surgery, crisis intervention is to psychotherapy. Thus, crisis intervention is sometimes called “emotional first aid”.
Aims of Programme
The aim of the training programme is to impart an awareness of workplace critical incident stress and to develop key competencies, skills, and knowledge in the field of managing and responding appropriately to critical/traumatic incidents across a wide and diverse range of occupational contexts. It addresses the important issue of protecting the psychological health and safety of workers in occupational groups likely to be exposed to critical incidents during the course of their work.
Learning Outcomes.
- Have an understanding of the role of properly trained Peer Support workers in an organisation
- Understand the concepts of CBT as a comprehensive Trauma Intervention Programme.
- Display an appreciation of the role that individual trauma intervention plays in supporting staff members.
- Demonstrate basic terms and concepts relevant to the study of crisis, traumatic stress, and crisis intervention.
- Display an ability to use crisis and trauma communication techniques.
- Understand the 7 Stages of Critical Incident Debriefing
- Understand Psychological reactions to crisis and trauma, including common symptoms.
- Demonstrate active listening skills.
- Have an understanding of the potential psychological impact of a critical incident
