Critical Incidents

Supporting Recovery After Critical Incidents and Trauma

Critical incidents can overwhelm coping mechanisms, impacting individuals, teams, and organizations. These events often extend beyond the workplace, affecting families and communities. A trauma-informed approach helps foster resilience, recovery, and stability. Leaders, managers, and colleagues play key roles in providing support during these challenging times. Explore this page for resources, tools, and strategies to guide teams through critical incidents and promote healing and well-being.

Critical Incidents

A critical incident is any event with the potential to overwhelm our usual coping mechanisms. Such incidents can impact both the organizational system and individual employees, with effects often extending beyond the workplace to communities and families. The support colleagues and organizations provide during and after traumatic events is profoundly impactful, with long-lasting implications. Colleagues, leaders and managers can play a pivotal role in guiding, informing, and supporting their teams through these challenging times.

Supporting Colleagues When Traumatic Events Happen

Traumatic or adverse events can deeply affect us, bringing about a wide range of natural and expected feelings and experiences. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to feel, and the recovery process requires time, patience, and intentional effort. Read this article to learn more about how you can support your colleagues after a traumatic event.

Guidance for Leaders and Managers in Critical Incidents and Workplace Loss

Trauma Events or History of Trauma

Trauma can be experienced directly or vicariously. Events such as sexual or physical assault, racial bias or discrimination, or witnessing a horrific event can significantly impact our brain, emotional well-being, and ability to function.

FEAP offers trauma-informed assessments and short-term counseling services for employees navigating immediate crises or historical trauma that actively affect daily life.

Traumatic stress is a natural response to abnormal events. For many, symptoms may persist for several days or weeks before gradually subsiding. However, some individuals benefit from professional support to aid in the healing process.

While trauma affects everyone differently, here are some common symptoms:

  • Inability to recall parts of the traumatic event
  • Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event
  • Flashbacks (feeling as if the event is happening again)
  • Irritability or sudden outbursts of anger
  • Hypervigilance (being constantly on alert)
  • Difficulty falling or staying asleep
  • Nightmares
  • Intense distress when reminded of the trauma
  • Physical reactions (pounding heart, sweating, or nausea)
  • Avoidance of trauma-associated activities, places, or thoughts
  • Feeling emotionally numb

FEAP trauma services provide education about natural trauma responses, foster resilience, and encourage healthy coping strategies. Recognizing and addressing symptoms early can make recovery more manageable. Our trauma services focus on stabilization and healing while connecting individuals to community resources and practices that can help transform their journey from surviving to thriving.

Watch "Expanded Trauma Knowledge and Coping," a presentation by Joyce Camden, LCSW at the UVA Nursing Summit