Providing Psychological First Aid as a First Responder

As a first responder, responding to emergencies and disaster is a common part of your service. As you will likely be the first person to be in touch with survivors of such crisis, you can use Psychological First Aid to reduce their distress and promote coping.

Here is the overview of the steps (or “core actions”) you can use when providing support (adapted from www.ptsd.va.gov’s PFA Training Manual, Version 2):

Engage and Comfort

Goal: Establish a human connection in a non-intrusive, compassionate manner.

Goal: Provide comforting emotional support and presence.

Stabilize

Goal: Calm and orient emotionally overwhelmed or disoriented survivors

Identify Needs and Concerns

Goal: Identify the person’s immediate needs and concerns to tailor future helping

Make Plans

Goal: Help survivors plan to address their immediate needs & concerns

Inform about Coping

Goal: Provide information about stress reactions and coping to reduce distress and promote healthy functioning.

Connect and Empower

Goal: Help establish brief or ongoing contacts with family, friends, and neighbors

Goal: Equip individuals to help those around them

In the box below, reflect on these core actions - do you feel you can improve in any category?