What Defines a Critical Incident?
Critical incidents are situations that occur outside of our normal frame of reference and challenge us to understand and cope with what has happened. For example: Experiencing violence Loss of someone from a terminal illness, accident, or suicide A natural...
Multiple Calls Podcast – Episode 114 – Amanda Harry
Amanda Harry is a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist who specializes in supporting firefighters and other first responders through trauma-informed care. Drawing on over two decades of frontline and clinical experience, Amanda helps those who serve...
7 Trauma-Informed Strategies
In the interconnected world between Canada and the USA, changes in policies, economics, and social issues can feel much like the invisible yet unsettling shifts of tectonic plates beneath the earth’s surface. Are we bracing for a catastrophic event much like an...
5 Tips To Help You Support Socially Anxious Teens
“I refuse to eat at school because I don’t want anyone to look at me and think I look gross,” a 14-year-old young woman shared with me during our counselling session. Social anxiety is the fear of being scrutinized and humiliated in front of others to the point of...
What does our clinical director have to say about building resilience as a helper?
Joddie Walker on Building Resilience for the Front-Line Helper: It’s a Lifestyle, Not a Task on Your ‘To-Do’ List!When we work on the front lines and hold positions where we listen empathetically to others' trauma stories, it becomes imperative to...
4 Keys for Helping Someone With a Mental Illness
Someone you care about has a mental illness – what do you do? The temptation is to try to persuade the person to think or act differently, but that doesn’t work very well. You end up arguing and talking in circles, only to get frustrated with each...
What Is CIGD and Why Is It So Important in the Workplace?
Having facilitated hundreds of Critical Incident Group Debriefings (CIGD), there’s always a magical moment during the intervention when I reflect to myself, “this process really helps people heal from trauma exposure”. I have used this model in many...
