Casualty Assistance Program Courses

The following training courses are available to Forest Service employees or interagency partners:

You Will Not Stand Alone

This training helps employees and leaders navigate the serious injury, serious illness, or death of an employee.

Hospital and Family Liaison

This training teaches hospital liaisons to support and provide information to an employee and family members after a serious injury of illness, and trains family liaisons to provide support and information to help families make decisions after an employee’s death. The training focuses on:

• Policies and procedures surrounding casualty assistance for employees and families
• Roles and responsibilities of hospital liaisons, family liaisons, and agency administrators
• Stress management techniques to address compassion fatigue and burnout

Preparing for Critical Incident Management

This training helps leadership teams manage a critical incident by focusing on the development of local, regional, and national leadership teams.

Leading Care Teams

A Forest Service initiative to centralize support and alleviate the administrative workload on units impacted by a critical incident established the Care Team. The Care Team is comprised of subject matter experts (SMEs) who advise a local unit when the complexity of an incident exceeds the unit’s capacity to manage it. The Care Team lead is a SME in agency policy, guidelines, and resources. He or she provides direction, coordinates tasks, and identifies action items. This training prepares employees to become Care Team members by teaching them about the Care Team structure and Casualty Assistant Program policies, procedures, and resources. The information teaches employees to provide direction, coordinate tasks, and identify action items for an affected unit and family after a critical incident.

Critical Incident Stress Management and Peer Support

The International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. (ICISF) offers high-quality courses in comprehensive crisis intervention and disaster behavioral health.  They offer both general and specialty courses about Critical Incident Stress Management. Employees who provide peer support must at least complete the ICISF individual and group crisis intervention training courses.

Please contact a Casualty Assistance Program coordinator (link:  CAP Coordinator spreadsheet) for information about additional training.