10.8 Creating a crisis plan

The following guidelines will help you create a crisis action plan that is tailored to the needs of your ill family member:

• Make sure that your relative is actively involved and participates in the discussion and in all decisions, and that his or her preferences are heard and respected.
• Involve as many members of your family as deemed appropriate and develop an approach that all can agree on.
• Generate a number of possible crisis plans and act on the ones that everyone, especially your ill loved one, agrees are the best ones.
• Develop specific steps for carrying out your plans. Decide what role each member will have in implementing the plan. For example, decide who is the best person to accompany your loved one to the hospital, should this become necessary, who should stay on at the hospital, and who should make phone calls from home.
• Decide who will speak to the treatment team or, in extreme situations, to the police, if your relative is unable to speak for him- or herself.
• Make sure to get your relative's permission to relate particular information to hospital staff or to the police.

Crisis cards

People with concurrent disorders and their family members have found it extremely helpful to write important information on a card or a piece of paper folded small enough so that it can be carried with them wherever they go. For example, the card or paper may be placed in a visible part of the person's wallet.

A crisis card usually contains information important for others (e.g., friends, health care workers, police, strangers) to have in the event that your relative experiences a mental health or substance use–related crisis while away from home. It contains information such as:

• important phone numbers—who to call in the event of a crisis or an emergency, including who to call first and who to call as a back-up
• the person's mental health or addiction professional (e.g., psychiatrist, therapist or worker)
• the person's family doctor
• the hospital or treatment centre at which the person has currently or previously been involved in inpatient or outpatient care
• a list of the person's current medications, the proper dosage for each, and the times of day or night that they are to be taken (you may also wish to include the name and number of the pharmacy at which the prescriptions are usually filled)
• a list of medications to which the person is allergic
• any medications used in the past for either the mental health or the substance use problem that did not work, or that the person would not take due to side-effects (you may list such medications in one column and list the side-effects in a second column)
• tips for effectively talking to and working with the person when he or she is in crisis
• neutral topics of interest to them
• comforting foods
• self-calming measures, such as music or video games.

Click the link below to print/view the following PDF:

• Activity 10-2: Creating a crisis card (PDF)