# Critical Incident Stress Management - Thurs June 20th, Devens, MA



## Goose (Dec 1, 2004)

The MA Dept of Fire Services is running it's annual Critical Incident Stress Management conference on Thursday, June 20th, in Devens. This event is open to all emergency personnel including police. Speakers include Dr Jeff Mitchell, the originator of CISM, an ATF Agent who will speaking about stress in investigations, and other speakers.

Topics include:

Charleston, South Carolina Sofa Super Store Fire
CISM for Line of Duty Deaths
CISM for Fire Investigators
Impact of Fire Fatalities on Emergency Personnel
Past, Present, and Future of CISM

The Critical Incident Stress Management program is a multi-jurisdictional program which is not just for firefighters despite being sponsored by the Department of Fire Services. The class is open to dispatchers, administration, department chaplains, reserve, auxiliary officers, hospital personnel, and mental health clinicians as well. This would be a great opportunity for people to hear what CISM is all about.

In MA, the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation model of CISM is the standard of care offered to all first responders in the Commonwealth. Each community in MA is assigned a district team responsible for that city or town. The teams are broken down by Fire District boundaries for simplicity. The teams are comprised of an assortment of team members from various backgrounds so that the needs in these communities are met. For example, the Greater Lowell team is comprised of Police, Fire, EMS, Hospital, Civilian Search & Rescue, Mental Health, and Chaplain representatives. There are also ancillary teams that are part of the State CISM network that don't have district coverage responsibilities, but provide services to their organizations such as Boston PD, Boston EMS, and Boston FD.

I have attached the flier and sign-up sheet for the class. A Lieutenant from a local PD that coordinates the training with DFS emailed the information to me in an effort to make more police officers aware of the class and spread the word about the training.


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## diddy2003 (Aug 30, 2012)

This was an amazing conference. I got a TON out of it. Thank you very much for posting. I will be getting more involved with CISM in the future.


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## Goose (Dec 1, 2004)

diddy2003 said:


> This was an amazing conference. I got a TON out of it. Thank you very much for posting. I will be getting more involved with CISM in the future.


Thanks for sharing diddy, and I'm glad you went. The training coordinator has signed up here to post about upcoming classes in the future and to answer any questions that folks may have.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2


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## diddy2003 (Aug 30, 2012)

That's awesome!! I spoke to a couple of the guys while I was there. My background and education is in counseling, so I really would like to get more involved. I am calling the director for my area some time today or next week. I really got a lot out of it. I just wish more people were there to see how important it is.


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## JRut47 (Sep 26, 2009)

Does anyone know of any up-coming classes in the Metro-Boston area, or any up-coming ones in general. Took a CISM class in college, think it's time for refresher.


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## Goose (Dec 1, 2004)

I'll email the coordinator and see if I can get him to pop in with some info.


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## diddy2003 (Aug 30, 2012)

I am also in on any future classes. I am taking a few classes for other things in upcoming months, but I really enjoy the CISM stuff. I called my area CISM director and she told me to monitor the MFA course list for them. I haven't see anything posted yet:
http://mfa.chs.state.ma.us/mfa_courses/courseAndSectionsList.asp


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## JRut47 (Sep 26, 2009)

I took my course at Anna Maria with Hayden Duggan who was affiliated with Boston H&H at the time.


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