Foundational Principles of Crisis Response – CRIS 302

Course Description

Rationale

Over 80% of Americans will be exposed to a traumatic event and experience significant distress due to a crisis or critical incident. A crisis typically involves a temporary loss of coping skills and causes significant impairment in nearly half of those exposed. Personal crises, such as death of family member or loss of a job, impact the ability to function in everyday life and affect relationships with spouses, family, co-workers, friends, and church members. Crisis response and crisis counseling are designed to help individuals cope with the stress or event experienced and to mitigate the threat of posttraumatic stress, critical incident, stress, and personal crises on the individual. This course provides the information needed to develop a foundational understanding of crises and crisis responding in order to help individuals return to prior levels of functioning.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (4)

Discussions are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, the student will submit a thread in response to each of the 4 case studies posed by the instructor. In addition, the student will submit a reply to the thread of at least 1 classmate. Each thread must be at least 400 words, and each reply must be at least 200 words. Each thread must include at least 1 peer-reviewed source from outside the course as well as biblical integration, and each reply must include at least 1 course textbook or biblical citation. All outside citations must be from sources published within the past 10 years, and citations must be in current APA format. (CLO: A, B, D, F)

Reflection Paper Assignment

The student will write a double-spaced, two-page (750-1000 words) Reflection Paper that will provide a brief overview of Caplan’s Seven Characteristics of Effective Coping Behavior and a personal reflection on how well the student has managed these characteristics. The student must incorporate a minimum of 1 scholarly citation in current APA format. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E, F)

Crisis Intervention Presentation Assignment

Each assignment in this course builds on the student's understanding of crisis intervention. While other assignments focus on specific facets of crisis intervention, this Crisis Intervention Presentation Assignment is about synthesizing the phases of a crisis, the various models (CISM, BIP, ABC Model), and the differences between crisis intervention and long-term counseling. The student will utilize the 2 class texts plus videos (if necessary) to create a PowerPoint (or Prezi) presentation of minimum 15 slides, not including title or reference slides. Information in presentation will cover the definition of a crisis state, Wright's phases of a crisis, basic interventions procedures, and Kanel's ABC model. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E, F)

Current Events Paper Assignment

The student will write about a current crisis event found in the news and write about how he/she would hypothetically respond as a crisis interventionist. The student will complete a 1250–1500 word review of the incident that includes 4 primary sections: (1) explore the nature of the crisis presented, (2) suggest steps for alleviating the crisis, (3) teach coping skills, and (4) help the victim(s) develop resiliency. This assignment must be in current APA format and must include at least 1 citation of a course textbook and at least 3 citations from academic journals. The paper must also include a title page and reference page in current APA format. (CLO: A, B, C, E)

Quizzes (3)

Each quiz will cover the Learn material for the assigned Module: Week. Each quiz will be open-book/open-notes. Quiz: Overview of Crisis Intervention and Quiz: Techniques and Ethics of Crisis Intervention contain 20 multiple-choice and true/false questions and have a time limit of 40 minutes. Quiz: Crisis Intervention of Suicide contains 14 multiple-choice, true/false, and essay questions and has a time limit of 1 hour. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E, F)