Psychology: Immediate Response to Victim Trauma

The way people cope as victims of a traumatic event, like an accident, natural disaster, or crime depend largely on their experiences immediately following the event. As a First Responder on the scene, you are usually the first person to approach victims. For this reason, you are in a unique position to help victims cope with the immediate trauma of the event and to help restore their sense of security and control over their lives.

It is not just law enforcement officers or Medical Emergency Personnel who are on the scene first, most often, it is a bystander, a friend, or family member who were in the vicinity, or was called by the victim.

Trauma affects everyone differently, This includes one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events.

The impact of trauma can be subtle, dangerous, or outright destructive. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the event(s), developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors.

Some individuals may clearly display criteria associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but many more individuals will exhibit resilient responses or brief subclinical symptoms or consequences that fall outside of diagnostic criteria.

By approaching victims appropriately, you will gain their trust and cooperation. Victims may then be more willing to provide detailed information about the incident or crime to officers and later to investigators and prosecutors, which, in turn, will lead to the conviction of more criminals.

Remember that you are there for the victim, the victim is not there for you.

You can help victims by understanding the three major needs they have after an incident occurred:

• the need to feel safe;

• the need to express their emotions;

• and the need to know “what comes next” after their victimization.

The information in this course is designed to show you how to meet these needs.

This course is designed to:

• empower individuals to respond victims' needs immediately after the event

• equip responders with the necessary basic skill an knowledge to assist victims

• Inspire the community and First Responders to reach out to victims immediately after the event.

• designed to also support mental health professionals who seek to engage in prevention, investigation, and intervention on behalf of victims.

In this course we discuss:

• Brief definition of Trauma

• Impact of trauma

• Victim-centered approach

• How we normally process information and how it is affected by Trauma

• Automatic Immediate Stress Response

• Different types of Incidents and Victims

• Three major needs of every victim

• Dealing with Responder Stress

What makes this course different?

We believe in providing high quality training at affordable prices. That way we can empower so many more people.

Over the years, I have responded to many disaster events, natural disasters, man-made disasters, like bombs, and bomb threats, armed robberies, shootings, home invasions, etc. Through all this, I noticed that everyone who arrives at the scene, has a specific purpose, whether it be law enforcement, medical response, etc. and each one pursues that purpose. But, although the victims are spoken to, not much attention is given to the victim itself, and the state of mind in the moment directly after the incident.

Many who do speak to the victims, neglect to consider the traumatic state of mind of the victim, which, in turn, can cause the trauma seriously affect the state of mind after a period of time where most people have "recovered".

The way we respond to victims immediately after the occurrence of the event, plays a major role in the success of the mental recovery and emotional healing after the incident.