21st Century CISM
21st Century CISM
The incident occurred on a cool spring night in the early 1980’s at a colonial two-story house in a relatively new suburban development – four bedrooms, a master suite, living room, dining room, large kitchen, family room at the rear with a sliding glass door overlooking a nice yard with a playground set. By the time I received the call from the county dispatch center to respond as part of the investigation team, the fire was over and five people were dead: two girls and a boy, along with their mother and father. Neighbors reported hearing the parents yelling for help from their front bedroom window in the master suite as heavy smoke and flames roared through the room behind them.
My responsibilities included documenting the scene with photos, helping the fire marshal with cause and origin, and looking for ways to prevent a similar incident with public education. That’s why I was the one who found the smoke detector under a pile of debris in the upper hallway, nestled in the drawer from a child’s desk among crayons, paper clips, and small toys. Kneeling on the front walk, I found that the battery that came with the detector when it was installed about a year before the incident was gone. The distraught contractor who built the house was standing nearby, repeating over and over that he had installed a smoke detector. He had, with a new battery.
It’s unlikely any of the firefighters or county response team members who were there will ever forget the incident. At that point, we had barely heard of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, or immediate emotional first aid, so we just did what responders had been doing for decades, and many of us paid a price.
CISD, as it was known at the time, has moved forward quite a bit since that time when Ronald Reagan was President and the Cold War was moving towards its endgame. This web-site, Empowered Learning Presents Dr. Jeffrey Mitchell will be part of that continued forward movement. This site is being presented by Empowered Learning Inc.(ELI) and Cinemagic Inc., as a place where Critical Incident Stress Management professionals can gather to discuss their experiences, share relevant research, and learn new ways of helping people recover from emotional trauma.
While ELI will be the publisher and Cinemagic will be responsible for technical design and development, Dr. Mitchell will be the editor-in-chief for this effort. Resource materials will be available, as will web seminars, webinars for short, interactive training, live chat, and meetings with Dr. Mitchell and other internationally recognized people in the field – all of it available through the worldwide web. We also will link to organizations that support CISM, and will highlight special events.
After the house fire, I started researching ways to deal with the impact of the incident, not just for our investigation team, but also for the firefighters who had responded to the call. This was my first contact with Dr. Mitchell’s materials, and it began what has become a strong professional relationship. Over the years I was fortunate enough to produce many of Dr. Mitchell’s EENET broadcasts, and work with him on a variety of training projects. This site is a way to continue outreach on CISM around the world.
I hope you’ll participate, both as a reader and an e-mail writer, and that you will encourage your team to participate as well. So – log on and let’s move forward.
Kenneth H. Stewart
Publisher
