Traumatic event debriefing: service delivery designs and the role of social work

Traumatic events are incidents that lie outside the range of usual human experience and are so powerful that they are capable of overwhelming any person's normal coping abilities and causing severe stress reactions. Traumatic event debriefing (TED), conducted 24 to 72 hours after exposure to the traumatic event, uses a form of intensive group crisis intervention. The method is designed to help reduce acute stress symptoms and accelerate the recovery process, thereby diminishing the subsequent development of posttraumatic stress disorder. Social workers have the precise constellation of skills, social-environmental perspectives, and practice methodologies indispensable both to developing TED teams and to leading the debriefings. This article addresses the evolution of debriefing-type psychological interventions for trauma victims, the debriefing process itself, three environment-specific debriefing team designs, and the unique qualifications of social workers to develop and lead the teams.