Basic Chaplaincy Training: Pastoral Crisis Intervention-1

Critical Incident Stress Management Courses Overview

These courses are certified through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation www.ICISF.org which is an internationally recognized organization for the field of trauma and recovery. 

The Basic course is entitled “Pastoral Crisis Intervention 1 - Basic Chaplaincy” and may be thought of as the combination of Biblical resources with traditional techniques of crisis intervention and trauma recovery. Pastoral crisis intervention presents the spiritual, physiological, emotional and mental responses to stress, grief and trauma and how to respond in manners of compassionate care. The purpose of this thirteen-hour workshop is to assist the participants in learning how pastoral interventions and traditional psychological crisis interventions may be effectively integrated for both the lay person and church leadership. Chaplains, pastoral counselors, mental health professionals, and basically anyone interested in using basic Biblical and pragmatic resources to come along side of people in a time of need should find this course of interest. (13 contact hours; 1.3 General CEUs from UMBC). The course uses multimedia and many interactive learning activities which makes for an enjoyable and enriching experience. This course can also be taught as a non-certified ICISF course in an online format via Zoom as a six-week series (90-minutes each session-9 contact hours).

Full 13-hours two-day (or three-day) ICISF Course

Day 1: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

• Nature of psychological crisis
• Crisis Intervention
• Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM)
• Overview of faith-based healing: Nature and research
• Applications of pastoral crisis intervention
• Pastoral crisis assessment: The "crisis of faith"
• Biblical perspectives on human suffering-Theodicy
• Psychological triaging
• Common psychological reactions during crisis

Day 2:(8:30 am - 5:00 pm)

• Mechanisms of pastoral crisis intervention
• The foundations of faith in crisis and recovery
• Mechanisms of traditional crisis intervention
• Indications and contraindications
• Practice in pastoral crisis intervention
• Most challenging applications
• Common problems encountered in pastoral crisis intervention
• Coping and Self-care strategies