Webinar teaches calm in a crisis

LOUISVILLE — A consortium of disaster care organizations, including Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, is offering a weekly online series on emotional and spiritual care following a disaster. The first installment, “Calm in Crisis,” was led Tuesday by Kristyne Duffy and Sean Coffman of Lutheran Disaster Response. The series continues each Tuesday through April 28.

“Calm in Crisis” served as an introduction to providing mental, emotional and spiritual care during and after a crisis. Disaster Emotional and Spiritual Care “focuses on presence and active listening and honors diverse faith traditions,” said Duffy, program manager for Lutheran Disaster Response.

Duffy touched on how different parts of the brain react to trauma.

The limbic system holds our emotions, memories and motivations, and is responsible for detecting danger. “It’s fast, automatic and emotional,” Duffy said. “It’s powerful and necessary for our survival, but it’s not strategic.”

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for cognitive function, thinking and problem-solving, and it regulates our emotions. “It asks questions about the long-term consequences of my decision and how it will affect others,” Duffy said. “It moves much slower, offering wisdom over impulse.”

During and after a disaster, it’s key for helpers to know what part of a person’s brain is in the driver’s seat, Duffy said. During and immediately after, “we are in the limbic system, with emotional highs and lows.” The fight, flight or freeze options are “the limbic system in action.”

During the recovery, we’re operating in the prefrontal cortex. “As we’re working with people, knowing what system they are in helps us decide what tools we should use in our actions with them,” Duffy said.

Then Duffy turned to a primer on PFA, Psychological First Aid, an evidence-informed modular approach to help children, adolescents, adults and families in the immediate aftermath of disaster.

What is Psychological First Aid (PFA)?

Psychological First Aid has five principles, Duffy noted:

• Safety, where the goal is to enhance immediate and ongoing safety concerns and provide physical and emotional support. It’s promoted by encouraging people to do things that are active, practical and familiar and perhaps getting connected to others who’ve had similar experiences.
• Calm, where the goal is to calm and orient emotionally. It’s promoted by being available if the person needs you and “being friendly and compassionate, even when people are difficult,” Duffy said.
• Connectedness, where the goal is to establish brief or ongoing contacts with sources of support. It’s promoted by helping people contact their friends and loved ones and linking people with relevant services.
• Self-efficacy, where the goal is to help people have a sense of control. It’s promoted by offering practical solutions that steer people toward helping themselves, engaging people in meeting their own needs and helping survivors identify coping strategies they’ve used in the past.
• Hope, where the goal is to instill a sense of hope in survivors. It’s promoted by finding out the types and locations of both governmental and non-governmental services and helping survivors to focus on what they can control and to manage expectations.

After a period of preparation, putting those principles into action follows three alliterative steps:

• Look for what’s happened and who needs help, and determine safety and security risks and trauma reactions.
• Listen by using active listening, using calming words and actions.
• Link people to information, connect with loved ones and access services.

Coffman, Lutheran Disaster Response’s director for training and networks, went over MESS basic training, an acronym for Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Support. The idea is to “stand with and walk beside an individual struggling with stress to increase awareness, encourage acceptance and empower action in a way that promotes health and healing.”

MESS has six steps: show up, lean in, listen out, provide care, kindle hope and refer, and follow up.

“As we say in North Dakota, it’s after the hot dishes have gone home,” Coffman said. “It’s a very fluid process.”

Under the MESS umbrella, helpers show up with the five C’s:

• Caring by accepting who the person is by being non-judgmental and kind
• Considerate by being mindful of time, safety and privacy
• Confidential by being a trusted and safe person
• Competent by being compassionate and capable, balancing power and control
• Curious by being genuinely interested and wondering with the person.

“They will not accept your help until you first hear their hurt,” Coffman said. “What they are going through matters.”

Coffman then offered this humorous video by Jason Headley:

It's Not About The Nail

“The nail is the obvious presenting problem,” Coffman said. “What she needs in that moment is validation. He says, ‘that sounds really hard.’ The helper can lean in with curiosity.”

The March 31 webinar is on “Faith in Action: Understanding Risk and Protective Factors.” It’ll be led by Emily Morrow, Senior Prevention Programs Manager for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.