The Crisis Plan
"There's someone I need you to contact urgently...”
It was Friday midday and one of those client emails landed that we all dread: “I have something urgent, there’s someone I need you to speak to, please call me immediately.”
Except, as is the risk in our line of work, this emergency was a suicidal employee.
This is when our work gets very real – and our service becomes potentially priceless.
Our founder called the HR Director personally, within 10 minutes of reading their email. Within the hour we had prepared the file, alerted our supervisor and a senior colleague, also a therapist, for peer supervision and support, and were on the phone with the distressed employee.
We can’t disclose any details of this case for ethical reasons, but we can tell you what is needed and broadly what we did:
We are extremely wary of any case like this reaching a Mental Health First Aider. Whilst we see the benefits of that recent initiative in terms of destigmatising mental health issues, proper and thorough training is required to handle issues relating to suicide.
This is where questions for you, the company, come in:
These are things we believe need to be thought about in advance and a plan put in place.
Before you get into the red.
A crisis can take many forms.
In a work context:
HR teams are used to dealing with the compliance side of such crises, but they can’t and can’t be expected to deal with the human fallout: this aspect is rarely supported for long.
On the more personal side of life:
What did we do here that makes for a successful case study? HR call taken, immediate response, extended session with therapist delivered, risk assessment carried out, crisis plan created, report sent, and therapy treatment in place. All within 7 hours.
What else did we do? We can’t say; what is said in a session stays in a session.
What impact did we have? In human terms, measuring that impact is hard to say – because it’s hard to objectively put into numbers and data. But we know what we did is hugely valuable. The client thought so too.
Perhaps even priceless. Because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
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That we offer this service is rare. Not many workplace wellbeing companies handle human crisis.
We do.
HR call or email and brief us confidentially on the details on the case in hand. We never disclose the content of this conversation outside The Circle Line walls.
We contact the employee(s) involved straight away and start support or treatment or discuss their needs.
We carry out a risk assessment with the employee and create a crisis plan together, covering all ethical areas according to the BACP Code of Conduct.
We report back to you in writing within the ethical boundaries of confidentiality.
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