Crisis Intervention

There are three things I want to address in terms of crisis intervention: 1) My impressions of it 2) An overview of the crisis intervention presentation, and 3) Crisis intervention at the Science Center.

I really looked forward to the "Crisis Intervention" presentation: I would say that I'm not skilled in crisis intervention. My only experience would be to help break up fights at the pub I used to work at. I wouldn't say that I back down from breaking up a fight, it's just that, for some reason, they occur away from me: I'm just not a magnet for trouble! (But then again, as a server, I'm not in the bar area as frequently as the bar staff) And with those bar fights, I would only intervene if and when the bartenders needed help: they're really good at breaking up fights. Due to my experience, I guess my posture would be to leave it up to the experts: the bouncers and bartenders in this case. I also had another impression of crisis intervention that included more personal problems than interpersonal problems. I initially thought about chronic behavior disorders (like eating disorders), drug problems, and deep depression/suicidal tendencies. Since I'm not a licensed teacher/psych major, I'm not sure if I'm right or wrong to include these in the crisis prevention category. I'm fairly certain it is.

However, since the teachers who presented this topic were very well versed in crisis intervention in terms of student outbursts/student conflict, it was very appropriate and informative! Here is what I got out of their presentation: I learned a cool way of handling a hair pulling situation (that was fun!) and it reinforced my former instruction on how to break grips. That would be the "cool" lessons. But what I found really fascinating was the Stress Model of Crisis: it presents the stages of a crisis very well. The concept in the model that shouldn't have surprised me was "baseline behavior." It's one of those common sense concepts that hasn't been conceptualized by or for me (aka "given a name"). A student (or any person) has a natural disposition when doing normal activities under normal situations, but his or her disposition could change in a heart beat due to some sort of "trigger event." Keep in mind, the trigger event may have nothing to do with the underlying problem the person faces, but it's the spark that sets them off. The duty of the teacher is to bring them back down to the baseline: de-escalation that leads to a recovery phase. I thought the group did a great job of explaining this process: especially the de-escalation of a violent out of control student. The advice they gave on maintaining a neutral tone of voice and neutral facial expression was dead on! The I ASSIST mnemonic is very helpful too!

So, what happens at the Science Center in a situation like these teachers find themselves in? Fortunately for me, we get to see the kids on their best day: they're happy to be here and the only behavioral problems are from over exuberance! I do know we are not allowed to touch our visitors unless our safety is at risk: but with this presentation, I have some non-contact strategies to deal with a crisis situation if it does arise here.