Impact guidelines psychosocial support uniformed services 04.06.2011 _ Hans te Brake, PhD 12th...

impact guidelines psychosocial support uniformed services 04.06.2011

_Hans te Brake, PhD12th European Conference on Traumatic Stress Vienna2-5 June 2011

Guidelines for psychosocial support for uniformed service organizations (USO)


A standard for the best psychosocial care for USO personnel

– to prevent differences in psychosocial care between organizations

– to prevent differences in psychosocial care within organizations


Commitment from relevant organizations

1. Ambulance2. Fire brigade3. Police4. Ministry of defence5. Royal Dutch Water Life Saving Association6. GPs7. Psychologists8. Psychiatrists9. Netherlands Society of Occupational Medicine

• In addition: the Dutch Red Cross, social counselors, Dutch Victim Care, Veteran care, The Netherlands Press Council, Association of Netherlands Municipalities


Guideline development

• Specific methodology• Systematic literature research• Best-practices• Consensus among experts

• Authorisation (commitment)

• Project- and steering group• Focus groups (multidisciplinary)• Test of practicality (mono disciplinary)

evidence based


Resilience as a vantage point

• Most people are able to recover after experiencing a shocking incident, people are resilient.

• Centralized are the uniformed servicemen and their ability to ‘bounce back’

• However, for this to happen a supportive context is needed, promoting the use of peoples resilience:– Provide practical help and information– Show empathy

• A timely detection of psychopathology and proper referral to professional help is essential


Stepped care model (based on Gersons, 2005)

• Applicable to all uniformed service organizations

• Leaves room for interpretation and context-specific implementation


Peer support

• Translation of the ’supportive context’ within the USO

• People working in an USO often prefer (direct) colleagues for

talking about work-related (shocking) incidents: colleagues are

accessible, and can provide a low-threshold access

• Peer support is already common practice (albeit in very diverse

ways!)

• Colleagues (and their supervisors) play an important role in the

timely identification of those in need for professional psychosocial

care


Peer support: 4 steps

1. detection 2. deployment peer support

3. delivering peer support

4. advise for referral

monitoring by coordinator / team leader

• 55 recommendations

• Uniformed servicemen, peer supporters, team leaders, management


Discussion

• Key accomplishments of guidelines for USO:

– multidisciplinary agreement on

– and organisation-wide adherence to

– specific recommendations

– regarding the best possible psychosocial support

– for uniformed services.


Hans te [email protected]

Thank you for your attention.

Impact guidelines psychosocial support uniformed services 04.06.2011 _ Hans te Brake, PhD 12th...

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