State 911 Committee Approved Training: MCI 201108A (Michigan)
SUICIDE, HOMICIDE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE--Many of the hottest, most dangerous and difficult calls you’ll ever manage as a 911 professional are probably driven by mental illness. Wouldn't it be great to truly understand what is going on in the caller's mind in those moments?
Yet there is almost no education designed especially for dispatchers to equip you with the knowledge about psychological disorders you need to excel at intervening with these callers--until now. Did you know there are officially over 300 mental disorders, and yet just a handful of "Serious Mental Illnesses" (SMIs**) account for the vast majority of calls you take involving suicide, homicide, and domestic violence? In this ground-breaking course, Jim Marshall, veteran therapist and Director of 911 Training Institute, will take you on a fascinating tour of this handful of the most challenging disorders to gain powerful insights and achieve better call outcomes.
You will explore disorders of...
- Mood, including Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder
- Thought, specifically Schizophrenia
- Anxiety, such as Traumatic Stress Disorders and Panic Disorder
- Personality, specifically Borderline Personality Disorder
You'll learn how... Alcohol, Substance Abuse, and Addictions can combine with or mimic many of these disorders and how unidentified Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can fuel all the above disorders when not treated adequately.
And You'll learn how to relate to callers with SMIs and all those who are greatly distressed/difficult with greater confidence and skill (and that's less stress for YOU)... Jim knows your first job is to help foster the immediate safety of all those on scene, not diagnose and treat people with mental illness. (That's his job!), But what do you do when deeply disturbed callers cannot or will not give you their address or other critical information required to get field responders on scene? You need to be a competent "emergency mental health dispatcher"--a dispatcher who can professionally manage callers in mental health crisis with optimal outcomes and less personal stress.
Dr. Jeffrey Clawson* realized in the 1970s that 911 dispatchers are the first first responders who must be prepared to assist in medical emergencies. 911 Training Institute is devoted to helping dispatchers gain similar equipping to assist callers with SMIs and other severly distressed callers. This course-- "10-96, Who are You?" (10-96 is one of the old codes for mentally disturbed callers) is our offering to help you become a capable emergency mental health dispatcher. And that means learning more about how to effectively manage and use your own distress during these calls to protect your own wellbeing and achieve peak performance.
Join Jim as he applies 24 years of clinical practice,dips into client stories, and shows brief educational videos to help you know from the inside what it is like to struggle with SMIs. We'll listen to and study 911 calls to identify how callers who are extremely distressed and those with SMI's present one or more than 15 different "mental states". Then as a class we'll learn how to intervene most effectively with these mental states to help callers get more emotionally grounded and become more cooperative in providing critical "sending information" to achieve best call outcomes and foster safety of your field responders.
Participants who enroll in this course may qualify to earn credit toward the future Certified Emergency Mental Health Dispatcher™ credential. (This credential is currently in the development phase. To learn more about the status of our work toward establishment of this credential visit the One Minute Update.)
Cost for this 16 hour (2-day) course: 349.00 per student, or host this class for increased value by qualifying for a flat fee. To host or sponsor this course and to review our cancellation policy click here. (Note: in support of the our 911 professional organizations, the cost per student may be less when this course is hosted by NENA, APCO or other state and national conferences.)
Visit our GuestBook to request more information or contact us at:
Info@911Training.net, or you can call Deborah at 231.622.1600
Send Snail Mail to:
911 Training Institute
MasterCare Institute, P.C.
704 Petoskey Street
Petoskey, MI 49770
Copyright notice: please note that the information contained in this outline is copyrighted and constitutes intellectual property. It may not be transmitted in any form for any other than for informational purposes without prior permission of the author.
*911 Training Institute has no affiliation with Dr. Clawson, nor has he endorsed the Institute's training. Yet his historical role and thinking has helped shape how I think as a 911 educator. So his contributions to the industry deserve recognition. JM
**SMI also is an acroynm for "severe mental illness". These acronyms are used differently for different purposes in the mental health discipline. In citing statistics on the SMI population, I am refering to Serious Mental Illness.
