Crisis Prevention-What it is and why it is important?

I had to run into school today to grab my crisis intervention manual to study for my annual re-certification. One of my friends joked “oh, you mean your restraint class.”  To which I replied, “It’s my restraint PREVENTION class!” It’s sad that crisis prevention often gets a bad rap. I feel many people believe it is solely taught for the purpose of restraint. Crisis prevention helps to provide support and monitoring well before you may have to intervene with a restraint.

   

Ultimately, crisis prevention is training that teaches staff to identify behaviors that may escalate into an unsafe situation for the students and/or the staff involved.  Staff members are then trained to help prevent or deescalate the situation before it gets out of control.

Every aspect of crisis prevention training is extremely important, as it helps to keep students and staff safe from harm.  Crisis Prevention Training emphases the importance of the following:

• ·        Building healthy relationships
• ·        Building healthy communication
• ·        Building conflict resolution skills
• ·        Medical risks
• ·        How to properly and safely physically restrain if and ONLY IF a student is putting themselves or others in danger.

Let’s face it; even though they may not know it, students use behaviors as a way to communicate with us. It is our job as professionals to be able to identify and prevent behaviors so that these students can be successful and most importantly SAFE.  

You can find more information on Crisis Prevention provided in the links

below:

The MANDT System

Crisis Prevention

Handle with Care

Thanks for reading!
 -Desiree