Dialogue and Discussion Can Lead to Postvention Buy-in

The CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention (NCI) Program Instructor Guide defines “postvention” by saying that it is an opportunity to “work towards change and growth for individuals who have engaged in risk behavior, as well as for staff members.” This tenth and final unit of the NCI training helps participants to recognize that without a postvention strategy, “crises are likely to occur over and over again.” This unit uses an acrostic model for the word “COPING,” allowing a word for each letter to represent an action that we should take – in order – when working with a staff and client after an incident. While the words are the same – Control, Orient, Patterns, Investigate, Negotiate, and Give – the actions we may take to prevent future crises may differ from students to staff.

In my effort to best transfer this information to participants, I like to tell a story about a young lady named Kelli who was a frequent visitor to my office when I was an assistant principal. I discuss how I almost always could help Kelli to get under “control” before “orienting” myself to the facts that led to her most recent incident. I then discuss how I began to pick up on “patterns” before I “investigated” possible alternatives that she may agree with to avoid future incidents. I then share how I was able to “negotiate” a plan with her before giving back “control.” I then share how I use these same words in my work with staff.

While this is a great story that allows others to understand the COPING Model and to recognize the importance of Postvention, I realized that I was not always giving my participants a lot of chance to talk during this unit. Therefore, I was likely failing in my efforts to help participants to internalize information. After discussing this with Global Professional Manager Lesley Rynders, she helped me to fix this problem with a simple, tried-and-true strategy: Probing Questions. Lesley encouraged me to pose questions to groups that lead to table discussion…she encouraged questions that had more than one right answer. For instance, she often asks her participants “How [they] know somebody is under control.” To another table, she asks “What are some things to help somebody [to be] under control?” She may also ask, “How do I orient myself to the facts?” While some groups may discuss how they reconstruct a timeline, other group may have other, interesting ways to orient one’s self to facts.

Lesley also points out that this unit is an ideal place to tailor her lesson to the group. For instance, if training a group that works with patients suffering from dementia, she recognizes that “debriefing is not often an option” so she tweaks the COPING model, actually focusing more on the staff side. “We are the only people we have control over,” Lesley reminded me.

With This unit, it Is very important for participants to have some immediate takeaways that they can apply to their work tomorrow, or this week. As a result, I hope you can use questioning to make that more possible for your participants. Great discussion will equate to powerful progress in your facility’s culture.