Psychological first aid as a remedy to reduce mental health stigma – Christina Watlington, PhD and Christine McGuire, MSc

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Christina and Christine share the details of the Psychological First Aid (PFA) training they created and launched at ChristianaCare. Their training, which has reached more than 50% of leaders at ChristianaCare, uses an easy-to-remember three-step model of recognizing signs of stress or distress, supporting immediate recovery and referring team members to additional resources provided by ChristianaCare to support team member safety and wellbeing. As a result, the number of referrals to the organization’s Care for the Caregiver program has doubled. Essentially, PFA serves as a culture change mechanism to help reduce the stigma around mental health care. By giving leaders and bedside team members a shared vocabulary around safety and wellbeing, help-seeking behavior is being normalized. It’s also opening new horizons and expanding resources to support more elements of trauma recovery and trauma-informed care and leadership. 

Find more resources at www.heartofsafetycoalition.com

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Stryker.