ISSUES AND PRACTICES.pdf - The Counseling Team International

Some Family Members Participated in the Mohawk DebriefingThere was no formal involvement of family members in the debriefings after the Mohawk riot.However, when the president of the union local at the time called officers at home, he asked iftheir wives and husbands were having difficulty coping with the crisis and for permission to talkwith them. The union president referred three wives for followup professional counseling toSusan Cooper, the county's critical incident stress program director who co-led several of thedebriefing sessions.Cooper also gave out her telephone number at all the sessions she co-led. As a result, three orfour other wives called her later. She met one for coffee and talked to the others on the phoneabout how to handle their children's reactions to the incident.Lieutenants' TrainingSeveral New York State Department of Correctional Services regional training coordinators haveused a portion of their training budgets to hire Roger Johnson, who consults nationwide for theAmerican Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and criminaljustice agencies, to provide a day-long training session for lieutenants on the issue of stress. Thesession is not supervisory training; rather, it is designed to help the lieutenants deal with theirown stress.The training coordinator for one of the Department of Correctional Services' nine hubs arrangedfor Johnson to train lieutenants in the five prisons in her hub. The coordinator submitted a grantproposal to the lieutenants' union local, which had funds for training purposes. The president ofthe union local agreed to pay the $1,500 to $2,000 for an offsite location, lunch, refreshments,and Johnson's fee.Two lieutenants who attended the session cited different advantages of the training:"Lieutenants are more inclined to go if the training is just for lieutenants because they feel it's forthem.""Conducting the training offsite means an awful lot; the facility influence is on you if it's [held]there. You need to go away to focus."According to another lieutenant who attended,I can still use what I learned there compared with other classes where you forget everything. Itwas geared to the job, but I was interested on a personal level--for example, road rage: Why do Ihave this reaction? Johnson taught relaxation techniques. I don't use them a lot, but from them Ilearned to relax physically: I see something that could be stressful, I take a breath, and I close myeyes. I don't get upset in traffic anymore.For further information, contact: