Session Ten: Crisis and emergency

Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders - Facilitators' Guide

Session Goals

Help participants to identify potential crisis and emergency risks that might apply to their situation.
Encourage the development of crisis and emergency plans that allow quick, effective action when needed.
Increase confidence that if families are prepared, crises and emergencies can be better managed.

Content Outline

Crisis.
When a crisis becomes an emergency.
Getting treatment in an emergency situation.
Creating an emergency plan.
The forensic mental health system.

Activities

Activity 10-1: Reflecting on an Escalating Crisis
Activity 10-2: Creating a Crisis Card

Leaders’ Notes

The key objective of this session is to shift the focus from being reactive, fearful and waiting for the other shoe to drop, to being proactive, prepared and more confident about what to do in a crisis or emergency.

One of the great benefits of working with families who are affected by concurrent disorders is learning from experts. In this case, the experts were our group members. First of all, they highlighted this topic as an essential one for them when we did our needs assessment. That helped us identify key content to share with them. When they started sharing their practical experience, we realized that some of the tools and approaches they had developed deserved to be more widely known. An example of this was the participant who kept copies of key information—health card, social insurance number, home address, telephone numbers, family doctor’s name and address, diagnoses, prescription medications—at hand so that if there was a need to present for care, they were ready. Or, if vital information was lost, they had back-up copies. This interested other group members a great deal. As a result, we made it an integral ingredient in making a crisis/emergency plan (see Activity 10-2).

By canvassing for ideas based on experience or on identified needs, we were able to access and draw on the expertise of the group participants. By discussing the ideas in detail, we could evaluate and validate the resourcefulness of the participants. By offering to pull materials together, we could help other participants add to the ways they dealt with potentially distressful events.

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