CHCMGT005

Facilitate workplace debriefing and support processes

Objectives

Conduct structured
Monitor welfare of
debriefings following
colleagues
an incident
INTRODUCTION
Introduction
The issues commonly experienced by community service workers
include the impact of certain issues such as:

❖Burn out
❖Grief and loss
❖Violent or threatening behaviour
MONITOR WELFARE OF COLLEAGUES
 The physical symptoms of stress can include:

• Headaches, neck and backaches

• Lowered resistance to infection and
viruses
Monitor stress and • Eating and sleep disorders
emotional wellbeing of • Migraines
colleagues and take action • Ulcers
• Asthma
• High blood pressure and heart disease
• Cancer and diabetes
• Indigestion and diarrhea
• Skin problems
Work performance Emotional Behaviour
• Declining or inconsistent performance • Crying
• Inability to concentrate • Angry or aggressive outbursts
• Not getting things done • Erratic behaviour (inconsistent with usual behaviour)
• Indecisive • Over-reaction to problems
• Forgetful • Sudden mood changes
• Loss of enthusiasm • Irritability/moodiness
• Failing to take annual leave • Feeling depressed or anxious
• Increased errors/accidents
• Reduced reaction times
Withdrawal Relationships
• Reluctance to give or offer support • Criticism of others
• Arriving late and leaving early • Lack of co-operation
• Extended lunches • Marital or family difficulties
• Cynicism • Conflict with team members/manager
• Absenteeism • Use of grievance procedures
• Turnover • Bullying or harassment claims
• Presenteeism (being at work but not contributing or
participating in work)
• Reduced participation in work activities and social
events
• Fixation with fair treatment issues
Physical/physiological signs Seeking support
• Tired all the time • Employee complains of ‘not coping’ with the work,
• Sick and run down ‘feeling stressed’, or a lack of management support

• Difficulty sleeping • EAP use

• Headaches • Submission of workers’ compensation claims

• Weight loss or gain Substance abuse

• Dishevelled appearance • Increased consumption of caffeine, alcohol,
• Gastro-intestinal disorders cigarettes and/or sedatives

• Rashes
 Counseling,

Relaxation training,
Some approaches that an
organisation can take to
address stress
experienced by staff Time management skills
development,
include:

Stress management training,

Addressing working conditions

issues such as changes in work
routines or production
schedules
Acknowledge and accept differences and
identify diverse needs of colleagues

Using practices that acknowledge and accept differences involves

working with people from culturally diverse backgrounds in such a
way as to demonstrate respect for their differences. This includes:
• Understanding the customs of the other culture and the
inadvertent ways we can misunderstand one another when
we are from different cultures
• Respecting that it may not be easy for others to change their
lifelong habits to become “like us”
• Respecting that they may not want to become “like us” if they
perceive our behaviour as in opposition to their values
• Ask about behaviours you do not understand – e.g.: why don’t
you look at me when I speak to you
• Say ‘sorry’ when you have insulted someone culturally
Identifying the diverse needs of colleagues
Our colleagues can have diverse needs in relation to the way in
which they respond and process stressful situations. These
different needs can include:
• Diverse ways of expressing themselves when they are
experiencing stress
• Diverse ways of asking for assistance and support
• Diverse symptoms associated with stress
• Diverse ways of viewing clients who behave violently or in
a threatening manner
• Diverse ways of grieving and experiencing loss.
 Workplace stress that affects performance can be caused
by:
Insufficient numbers of breaks during the
working day
Ambiguity relation to role and expectations
Use professional and personal Systems and processes that prevent workers
performance standards to from doing their jobs properly such as petty rules
monitor stress and emotional enforced by management
wellbeing Unrealistic deadlines
Poor working conditions such as low wages
Unclear instructions
Repetitive jobs that lead to boredom
High workloads
Use self-assessment and reflective behaviour
to monitor performance
When monitoring your colleague’s welfare you can encourage them to apply the following
techniques:
• Personal goal setting – this involves setting goals that are related to your performance and
seeking to attain these goals in your work.
• Measuring performance – this involves using a range of tools to help measure your
performance including identifying targets as indicators such as how many clients will you
service and within what timeframe.
• Time management – this involves improving the way in which you manage the time you
have to complete certain tasks at work as well as prioritising the tasks that you are
required to undertake.
• Identifying personal behaviour, personality traits – this involves working out what
personal characteristics you bring into the workplace and apply as part of your role.
Establishing a personal development plan

The personal development plan requires that you ask yourself:

• What you want to achieve

• Why you want to achieve these goals
• How you plan to achieve these goals
• Identify the potential obstacles, risks and dangers along
the way
• Describe how you plan to overcome the difficulties
identified.
Regularly seek formal and informal performance
feedback and act upon it as appropriate
Listen actively
Let the person giving feedback a chance to do so without interruptions or objections. Even if the
feedback if positive and some people find praise and compliments uncomfortable, appreciate that it
is not easy to give feedback and wait until they are finished saying what they intend to say before
making your own comments. Ask questions that indicate you are making an effort to understand
precisely what you are doing wrong or right. Offer suggestions on how you could change and
improve your practice. Listening actively does not mean sitting quietly waiting for the end of the
meeting- it means demonstrating that you have heard and taken on board the feedback provided.
Regularly seek formal and informal performance
feedback and act upon it as appropriate
Acting on the feedback
The way in which you receive feedback will determine how you act on
the feedback received. It is important to keep in mind the specific
issues raised during the feedback process and to take action to improve
these areas of work. It may be helpful to write down notes about the
issues raised to help you remember the feedback received. It may also
be useful to discuss the ways in which you could act on the feedback
with the person providing the feedback as they may have some
suggestions that you could take up to improve your performance.
 The records that could be reviewed in order to identify indications of
Plan appropriately stress in the workplace include:
• Incident reports and worker compensation claims should
to identify current be investigated to ascertain the sources of risk of work
place stress
and potential • Sick leave records should be analysed to identify any
areas of need patterns and high usage of sick leave
• Annual leave records should be reviewed as people who
within take small amounts of time off are commonly
experiencing unpleasant working conditions and stress
organisation and • Staff turn over can occur in trends such as relating to
shifts or following periods of unpredictable work and
develop proposals high-pressure work.
• Employee assistance programs, which involve counselling
to support these workers, can produce some interesting data to help
identify issues of stress.
areas .
Dispute resolution policies and procedures
When people are under pressure and experiencing stressful working conditions they sometimes enter
into dispute with one another. There will be occasions when a need for implementing dispute
resolutions policies and procedures becomes necessary. Most dispute resolutions processes encourage
workers to resolve an issues or concerns that they have at the earliest opportunity with each other. If
these attempts to resolve issues are unsuccessful, then their immediate supervisor should become
involved in addressing the dispute.
CONDUCT STRUCTURED DEBRIEFINGS
FOLLOWING AN INCIDENT
 In planning debriefing session you should consider the
following:
Plan, prepare Everyone who was affected by the incident
should attend debriefing sessions
and conduct Debriefing should occur within 24 to 72 hours
after the incident
debriefing in The sessions should be conducted in a place that
line with enables the participants to involve themselves in
the processes free from distractions and
interruption.
organisation The confidentiality of everyone present should
be reassured and maintained
standards and Creating a culture that normalises the debriefing
process is important so that people do not feel
procedures discriminated against for attending.
Formal debriefing
sessions
• In general debriefing sessions address the following
questions:

• What happened?
• Who was involved?
• Where did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• How do people feel about what happened?
• What did we learn?
Legal and ethical
considerations
• When an incident occurs in the workplace there are often
legal and ethical considerations that apply to that incident,
especially if the incident involves clients of the organization.
These could include issues relating to:

• Duty of care
• Principle of least restrictive intervention –
• Client confidentiality
• Police involvement and criminal charges
• Employment conditions
• Workplace health and safety regulations
Schedule debriefing as soon as possible
following the incident
• Debriefing should be conducted in an environment that is
comfortable and familiar to the participants. The facilitator should
ensure that the environment is:

• Physically comfortable
• Private
• The right size
• Quiet
• Has the necessary equipment
Conduct debriefing in a safe environment and in
a manner that facilitates open discussion
• Debriefing should be conducted in an
environment that is comfortable and familiar to the
participants. The facilitator should ensure that the
environment is:

• Physically comfortable
• Private
• The right size
• Quiet
• Has the necessary equipment
Facilitating open
discussion
• The facilitator’s role in the debriefing session is to
listen to what is being said and encourage all the
participants to articulate their thoughts. It is common
for people to have different ideas about the incident
that occurred and sometimes they will not feel
comfortable sharing their thoughts in an open setting.
If they don’t express their ideas in the debriefing
session the group may miss out on hearing a valuable
perspective. It is very important that everyone feels
that their perspectives matter enough to others to be
heard.
 Use appropriate debriefing techniques to encourage further
exploration of emotions and experiences to assist in reflection on
issues

Debriefing processes are By recognising and naming the

designed to give the experiences participants will
participants the opportunity to become more aware of their
explore their emotions and own personal resources that
experiences and reflect on the can be used to address the
issues that arose from the emotional issues raised by the
incident. incident.
Debriefing
techniques:
Other than discussing the issues by the facilitator
asking questions and the participants answering them,
there are a number of techniques that could be
applied in debriefing sessions to encourage and
stimulate discussions. Some of these techniques are as
follows:
✓Pair and share
✓Index cards
✓Sharing circles
Structured debriefing
A debriefing agenda could include the following:
1. A description of the event – which can involve everyone taking an opportunity to contribute to the
description as they remember it.
2. Exploration of the participants views – this stage could be used to allow the participants to discuss
those elements of the incident that were a success or required improvement such as changes in
staff responses.
3. Exploration of participant’s emotional reactions – this could include reflection of participant
behaviour and responses from a psychological and emotional perspective.
4. Summary of views – when the participants have had an opportunity to both the negative and
positive elements of the incident there needs to be a summary of views and identification of any
common themes.
5. Conclusion – this stage could be used to draw on any conclusions from the incident including
forming recommendations if relevant.
6. Personal action – time should be allowed for the participants to reflect on their own experiences
in terms of developing action plans for themselves to follow in case of further similar incidents
 Crisis intervention is emergency psychological care
including a range of methods used to offer
immediate short-term help to individuals who
experienced an event that produces emotional,
mental, physical and behavioural distress. It
involves a number of stages of intervention
including:

Crisis intervention : • Assessment of what happened during the

crisis and the individual responses to it.
• Education is provided as part of crisis
intervention where the individual is
informed about the various responses to
crisis that could occur including reassuring
them that their responses are normal.
• Exploring coping strategies is another
element of the crisis intervention process.
Internal and external
referral sources:
Your organization will have a range of internal sources for assisting in
debriefing including supervisors who are willing to discuss the issues
raised by incidents. Referring colleagues to these internal sources will
be determined by the extent of stress is experienced by the worker.
External sources for managing issues that arise from an incident
include sources that are provided to the general public in the wider
community such as:
• Psychologists and psychiatric assistance
• Relaxation exercise techniques such as Yoga classes
• General practitioner
• Debriefing specialist organizations
 Debriefing sessions are designed to explore both
emotional responses to issues raised as well as
articulate concerns relating to these issues. The
facilitator’s role involves finding mechanisms to
encourage the participants to express themselves
and often this is achieved by using appropriate
questioning. There are a number of different
Use appropriate questioning questions that a facilitator could ask including the
to encourage colleagues to following:
explore and acknowledge • Open-ended questions
their concerns • Questions seeking information
• Diagnostic questions
• Challenging questions
• Extension questions
• Priority questions
• Action questions
• Prediction question
Identify indicators of risk to self or
others and respond according to
the degree and nature of the risk
When conducting structured debriefs you may find that your
colleagues are so distressed by the incident that occurred that they
could be at risk of harm to self or others. The incident could cause
them to feel hopelessness, isolation and despair that may lead some
people towards suicidal acts. There are a number of indicators or signs
that we can use to identify when a person is at crisis point and actively
considering suicide. A persons behaviour can indicate a crisis and
potential for self-harm. The process of identifying risks involves:
•Asking the person directly about their thoughts of suicide when you
have reason to be concerned
•Identifying potential warning signs that would lead to enquiring about
suicide, self-harm and the community’s safety
•Avoiding assumptions about who is the type of person to be at risk
and considering the individual issues.
 The way in which you respond to indicators of risk will
vary depending on your role in relation to the person
who is expressing risks to self or others.

Responding The response could include referring the colleagues to

the Employee Assistance Program in your work place.
to indicators
of risk to
The Employee Assistance Program is a work-based
self or intervention program that is designed to enhance the
others emotional, mental and general psychological wellbeing of
employees in a workplace.

It is usually a free service provided by employers aimed

at providing preventative and proactive intervention for
both work based and personal problems.
Document and report outcomes of
debriefings in accordance with organisation
standards and procedures
The reasons why outcomes of debriefs should be documented include that records enable workers to remember what
action was taken as an outcome of an incident. The records also should contain details about the incident so that if
the incident occurs again then the lessons learnt from the previous occasion can be implemented. Reports from a
debrief should contain:
• Information about the incident such as the date, location, duration of the incident, incident background, the
cause of the incident, the impact of the incident, who was involved in the incident, the way in which the
incident was managed.
• Information about the debriefing process including location of the debrief session, who attended the
debriefing session, discussion that occurred during the debriefing session, outcomes of the debriefing such as
any recommendations.
• Summarise the debriefing session by identifying the things that went well, the level of cooperation between
people responding to the incident, the effectiveness of strategies used during the incident, suggestions for
improvement in the future
 Stressful incidents can elicit a range of different responses. The way in which an
Identify and individual responds to a stressful incident depends on factors such as:

promptly respond
to colleagues Whether they have faced a similar incident before

needing additional
support and refer
The particularly experiences they have had during the incident
in accordance with
organisation
guidelines Their personal history

The supports that are available to them

Presentation Objectives
Now that you have completed this presentation, you should be able to:
✓ Monitor welfare of colleagues
✓ Conduct structured debriefings following an incident