TRAUMATIC EVENT DEBRIEFING - SERVICE DELIVERY DESIGNS AND THE ROLE OFSOCIAL-WORK

Traumatic events are incidents that lie outside the range of usual hum an experience and are so powerful that they are capable of overwhelmin g any person's normal coping abilities and causing severe stress react ions. Traumatic event debriefing (TED), conducted 24 to 72 hours after exposure to the traumatic event, uses a form of intensive group crisi s intervention. The method is designed to help reduce acute stress sym ptoms and accelerate the recovery process, thereby diminishing the sub sequent development of posttraumatic stress disorder. Social workers h ave the precise constellation of skills, social-environmental perspect ives, and practice methodologies indispensable both to developing TED teams and to leading the debriefings. This article addresses the evolu tion of debriefing-type psychological interventions for trauma victims , the debriefing process itself, three environment-specific debriefing team designs, and the unique qualifications of social workers to deve lop and lead the teams.