Mobile Incident Stress Team (M.I.S.T.)
M.I.S.T. exists for the purpose of supporting community groups affected by stressful incidences’ in the Grand Rapids and surrounding areas. When a person experiences, or witnesses, a sudden and unexpected stressful event, the brain has the potential to become overwhelmed by excessive sensory input. This can increase the likelihood of physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions that disrupt one’s ability to function effectively at home, work and/or school. The reactions experienced are normal human responses to extreme stress and can make a person feel anything but normal.
Stressful incidences’ may include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Disaster
• Community violence
• Workplace or school crises (ex. sudden and unexpected injury or death)
M.I.S.T. offers a variety of services and resources aimed at promoting good health, decreasing lasting effects of stress and increasing resiliency. To accomplish this, M.I.S.T. provides information to community agencies’ which will foster agency members’ ability to identify and positively cope with the effects of stress, on both, an individual and organizational level.
Services Provided
Defusing
A one-to-one or group session that takes place shortly after a stressful incident. A defusing provides a chance to discuss the event and its effects with a trained team member or members. A defusing is typically held at the area of the incident, or by phone. Participants are given information about the event and information to guide them through the recovery process.
Crisis Management Briefings (CMBs)
CMBs are information sessions presented by M.I.S.T. team members and designed to reduce stress for those involved in the incident. Factual and research based information about the current situation and available resources to aid in decreasing lasting effects of stress when dealing with an ongoing stressful event will be provided. CMBs are typically held during or immediately after the event and have been used for but not limited to school shootings, floods, toxic spills, wildfires, on-the-job fatalities and other significant events that affect multiple people or an entire community.
Follow-Up
M.I.S.T. team members are available to talk with individuals continuing to be troubled by reactions to an event.
Resilience Training
M.I.S.T. team members visit organizations to teach about preventing severe stress reactions, building team support, and planning for stress management.
All team members’ of M.I.S.T. have completed a specialized training lead by a certified instructor from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. (ICISF).
For more information on receiving M.I.S.T. services, please call Northland Counseling Center at 218-326-1274.
