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EAP & SUPPORT SERVICES

Critical Incidents — Rapid Response

Timely psychological support during critical events.

What is our Rapid Response service?

Rapid response provides practical psychological support for those impacted by potentially traumatic events / critical incidents while managing and removing any psychological hazards.

  • Serious accident, injury, or fatality. Bob was seriously injured in a workplace accident. His teammates are shaken up and need support.
  • Near miss. Lin came close to being electrocuted when a piece of equipment malfunctioned. The whole team is reviewing safety procedures, but they are worried about the psychological fallout too and want to make sure everyone is cared for.
  • Occupational violence/ assault. A customer threatens a worker with a knife. Even though the attacker was arrested, the whole team is now worried about coming to work.
  • Natural or man-made disasters. Bushfires, floods, earthquakes and terrorist sieges are all examples that our rapid response team has dealt with in the past 10 years.
  • Pandemics. The effects of a pandemic are not just about sickness and associated anxiety. The effects of lockdowns, isolation and stress can linger for years.
  • Disruptive mental health episodes. Jill’s mental health is so fragile that during a regular performance management meeting she curled up in a fetal position under the desk. These kinds of extreme behaviours are unusual but, when they happen, coworkers will need support to understand and process these behaviours and be guided about how to support Jill on her return to work.

Our services are designed to support your organisation, leadership teams and impacted individuals through all stages of the incident episode, from organisational preparedness, to response and intervention, to incident management, and recovery.

Our services in this space include

Critical incident response to potentially traumatic events that, by nature, are sudden and unplanned. Our rapid response team works with you to map out a proportionate response to mitigate the impact on individuals and teams. 

Sometimes you know about a potentially traumatic event in advance, for example, when you are about to announce major restructuring and job losses. We can work with you before the event to put together a support plan for your staff. Our team maintains complete confidentiality and can be trusted even with highly sensitive news.

This is our phone-based support model when you have large groups of people impacted by an event. We find this is most useful for prolonged periods of stress, uncertainty or protracted change. It is also helpful when employees are located in different places, making onsite group support less relevant or possible. 

Regular critical incident support is designed for people who may only encounter a traumatic workplace incident once or twice in their lives.

But some teams are exposed to potentially traumatic events on a regular basis. These can include health professionals, child protection, prison environments or other public-facing roles where there is a high likelihood of emotionally exposing work.

Those teams need different support. Sometimes it’s support for a series of events, not just one. And it is often most effective when it is part of an operational debriefing meeting where feedback and actions on operational matters are also part of the process.

Our incident support forums have been designed for these environments and use consultants who understand the special nature of this work and quickly become trusted partners to these teams.

 

Response to large scale natural or human disaster events, often impacting specific geographical areas. Converge has a defined methodology for managing large scale critical events with possible prolonged impact and need for coordination, broad scale support, and thematic feedback over time.

What does our Rapid Response service offer?

  • Physically present consultations with impacted employees and leadership teams
  • Psychological first aid
  • Early engagement regarding communication and the support mechanism
  • 24/7 365-day Rapid Response number access
  • Group or individual support sessions
  • Incident reporting and recommendations
  • Post-incident onsite EAP service
  • Post-incident follow up consultations
  • Organisational post-incident strategy development and delivery

Delivery Modes

Our Rapid Response service can be administered onsite (face-to-face), via video conference, on the phone, or via live chat.  Often it is a combination of delivery modes as needs change over time. 

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Read about Rapid Response

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Read about Reporting a Critical Incident

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CRITICAL INCIDENTS – RAPID RESPONSE

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Critical Incident Response
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