10 Best Techniques to Help Facilitate Crisis.
Facilitating crisis is tough work. If you haven’t checked out the part 1 yet I would encourage you to do so. Part 1 gives a foundation of this complex undertaking. Actually, if mastered it’s the most important to remember when entering a crisis. The following article on crisis facilitation is built off of Part 1. The first article discusses Mindfulness, Creating Conditions, Clarity and Instilling Hope. The following article begins to break down some techniques or tools to consider during that Part 1 process.
Facilitating crisis is an art. We must be flexible with every second of the intervention. In addition, we must challenge our own attitudes, values and beliefs. If we can step out of our own box and put ourselves in the other persons shoes, we will start to take a step winning the battle. That battle I’m talking about is doing no harm and allowing the people in the crisis to walk away from the situation feeling whole. Furthermore, it’s an opportunity to help people be successful so they don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again. As facilitators we are teachers and in large it’s our duty to give a chance to help people grow, gain wisdom and deeper understanding. So, let’s get into this; 10 Best Techniques to aid in Facilitating Crisis.
1 Always minimize harm.
We will never know the extent of the impact our actions will have on another person. Additionally, the ripple effect could be greater than we could ever fathom. There may be situations where we can’t completely avoid harm but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t commit everything in our power to reduce it. The website Thinking Deeply Self-Critically is dedicated to helping us become the best version of us and it’s no different while facilitating. In other words, crisis is profound work, and it takes our best version of us to conquer it. Our best version of us does no harm. Therefore, it’s essential to always minimize harm in every situation to simply do less damage and build our charter.
2 Maintain your balance throughout the process.
It’s easy to underreact or overact to situations that have intensity to them. It’s important to stay calm and focused on what is going on. Furthermore, it’s important to bring right amount of energy that the situation calls for. Balance can be tricky but it’s important to the outcome of any crisis. Balance takes adapting to the ever-changing situation.
3 Accept what is happening in front of you.
No one can tell another person how they think or feel. We need to accept what is happening in the moment. We might not like it, or we may disagree with it, but we need to accept it. Accepting it allows us to navigate through a situation with ease. Accepting it instead of resisting helps us find a better solution or outcome more quickly. Acceptance moves an already tough situation forward.
4 Allow people to get things off their chest.
People have crisis due to struggle mentally because they have a lot going on in their minds. Furthermore, they don’t know how to deal with it. Stuff builds up overtime and if a person doesn’t know how to handle it the situation it may boil up and then explode. This is often the case with crisis. It’s important to allow people to get things off their chests. Although this may be intense in the beginning of a conflict it should start to decrease with time and compassion. It’s our job as facilitators to give them time to unload.
5 Validate feelings.
Another strategy which is important is validation. Remind people it’s okay to feel the way they are feeling. Feelings aren’t wrong. We can never know where a person is as it pertains to their feelings, but validating will help them feel less wrong about the feelings they are experiencing. Another technique you can use sparingly is “relate” with the person. Just keep in mind don’t make the situation about you it’s about them. Sometimes you may have to go back and forth between validating feelings and allowing them to get things off their chest. This is a technique I would use to get a person back down to a more reasonable level of thinking and behaviors. Then I would tactfully begin discussing their responsibility in the situation (which they may not be ready for and should be addressed at a later time).
6 Help people feel empowered and in control.
Crisis is chaotic and sometimes out of control. Empowering someone in crisis can be as simple as some words of encouragement: “you’ve got this,” “you’ve been through tougher things in your life than this,” “This moment doesn’t define you” Helping someone feel empowered is about conveying our confidence that they can and will succeed. Furthermore, it might be considering all they have done in their past that was successful. This can take a good deal of mental endurance and purposeful conversation but empowering is powerful.
7 Convey confidence people can be successful.
Success doesn’t have to be a mountain it can be a small step. With crisis it’s up to us as a facilitator to help others see these small accomplishments. Furthermore, it’s up to us to instill hope that they will have many more accomplishments in their future. Sometimes a “Nice Work” or “Great Job” goes a long way. In fact, if you want to build meaningful connections with people especially those in crisis, highlight their successes.
8 Stay focused on one issue at a time.
As I said above sometimes crisis is chaotic. It’s normal for people to go all over the place when venting what is on their minds. Sometimes it helps to stay focused on one issue at a time if a person is able to do so. Not to mention, this step help people organize their already disorganized thoughts. This leads me to helping them getting these thought out of their heads by writing them down so they appear more manageable. There may be instances where people have different mental health disorder where they may not be able to focus on one issue at a time. In this case keep rolling with the conversation.
9 Always reinforce positive behaviors
It’s easy to become engulfed in criticism on others. Furthermore it’s no different when a person is in crisis. We may say thing like “Well you could have done it this way” or “Why did you do that” or “Get over it it’s not a big deal.” Crisis happens because the situation is a big deal in a person eyes. We always need to reinforce positive behaviors at all time and forget any snide comments we want to say.. Some examples may include “Hey you’re doing a great job.” “I’ve seen you make so many improvements.” “You’re doing well keep it up.” You and I both know that you have been through some tough time and you have succeeded.” Our words speak tons of volume. Lastly, your approach to these reinforced positive behaviors has a good bit of power as well. Things like your tone of voice, your body posture, and your delivery.
10 Return to normal after as soon as possible
What you subtitle doesn’t say is rush the process and get it over quickly. Return to normalcy is vital. Once a crisis is over as facilitators we need to move forward. We should never dwell or bring back the conversation of the crisis unless the person is ready to do so. If we choose to do this, we need to be very tactful and purposeful in our presentation. In all honesty, we don’t want to trigger a trauma response in a person. Returning to normalcy is an art. It’s about bringing closure and doing some patch up work. Again, what we do here is no different in that we need to be purposeful and tactfully intervene.
Conclusion
These are some of the best techniques to consider going into a crisis situation. It’s important to understand that all of these interventions need to be done very purposefully. They are also trial and error. If something doesn’t work, we have the moral obligation to try something different by changing our approach. Facilitators of crisis need to be master so reading the situation. Not to mention they need to be extremely flexible and flow with the ever-changing situation. They must do no harm or minimal harm while they are navigating the crisis. Facilitating crisis takes mental endurance and effort but it’s the right thing to do.
If you like what you have read, check out other articles on the website ThinkingDeeplySelf-Critically.com the site is designed to give us tools and techniques to help us become the best version of ourselves. There are four main categories on the site. The Foundation, Our Responsibility to Us, Our Responsibility to Others and Facilitating Crisis. We can also be found on Pinterest.
