Examine what you are told by the interviewee and compare it to the elements identified in the course studies.

To learn more about crisis intervention and trauma-informed community-based strategies, you will contact a crisis response professional to interview (in person, by phone, or through Zoom), who knows of an existing crisis response plan. This person can be a counselor, school counselor, EMT, police officer, administrator, etc. (School counseling learners should identify a school counseling professional, teacher, or school administrator.) Identify the person you want to interview and their specific job or role, such as crisis counselor or a member of the Red Cross or Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), or therapists who work with victims of PTSD or are involved in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) and arrange an interview. Once you arrange a personal interview, develop a set of open-ended questions that will allow you to gain a clear and complete picture of their crisis response plan as it currently exists. See the sample interview questions below.

Ask your interviewee to give you a specific example of an actual crisis and the details of the crisis management plan they used to navigate the situation. Examine what you are told by the interviewee and compare it to the elements identified in the course studies.

To successfully complete this project, you will be expected to do the following:

Compare and contrast the elements of a real-world example of an emergency management plan, obtained through your personal interview of a professional in the field, to the elements identified in the course studies.
Describe in detail the specific skills and knowledge required by a counselor in order to function effectively as a member of an interdisciplinary emergency management response team.
Describe the types of training a counselor requires to develop the required skills and knowledge relevant to emergency management, including assessing risk of aggression or danger to others.
Choose one of the special populations presented in Chapters 12, 13, or 14 and discuss additional resources available specifically to them (e.g., Military OneSource).
Exhibit proficiency in effective, credible academic writing and critical thinking skills.
Sample Interview Questions
In a crisis, are there critical timelines to be considered? If so, what are they?
Is there a developmental time sequence to a crisis? If so, describe it.
Considering a community-wide crisis, who are the local people or organizations that I need to contact? In what order or sequence or time do I do that?
Considering a community-wide crisis, who are the state and national people or organizations that I need to contact? In what order or sequence or time do I do that?
What helpful or positive role can the local media play in helping to resolve the crisis? How does one facilitate this?
What helpful or positive role can the national media play in helping to resolve the crisis? How does one facilitate this?
Who are the critical players on your emergency management team? Why are they critical?
What is the worst eco-systemic crisis you can imagine? Why?
What kind of training, education, and experience do you believe should be required to be an effective and competent manager of a community-wide crisis such as the one you described above?
Given a community-wide crisis such as a natural disaster, how do you go about coordinating and communicating an effective response?
When the crisis situation exceeds your local capacities and resources to respond, how and when do you know who to call for help?
What are your backup resources? Do you have redundancies in your system? In case I or any of my staff become incapacitated for any reason, are there people available who can effectively step in and assume the vacated responsibilities?
What kind of emergency crisis interventions are going to be provided for those who survive? Who is going to provide the interventions? When will it happen?
When and under what conditions will you declare the crisis situation terminated?
Do you believe that current stress reduction procedures, such as CISD for emergency workers, are helpful? If yes, how so; if no, how not?
What steps do you take to attend to your own stress and trauma as well as that of your staff?
What are the response team’s goals, functions, operations, organizational structure, and responsibilities?
Who is in charge of what security provisions?
What balance needs to be maintained between security of staff and providing human services?
What kinds of training do staff receive to prepare for emergencies?
What screening devices are used for volunteer selection? Are they reliable and valid?
What security personnel will be needed? Where and when?
Are there emergency contingency plans for a variety of problems? Do staff members know what is expected of them under varying circumstances?
Does the crisis response management team have a protocol for dealing with violent situations?
Who is in charge of responding to threats or physical violence?
Note: Use the Interview with Crisis Response Professional Template [DOC] to present the assignment criteria in an organized way. The headings guide you to the criteria, and the details that are included describe what is necessary to complete the assignment to a distinguished degree.