Emotional and Spiritual Care in Disasters

Requesting This Course:

Course Description:
This advanced level course will enhance your skills to provide effective emotional and spiritual care (ESC) to meet the disaster-related needs of disaster responders and disaster-affected families and individuals within disaster operations. This course builds on the crisis intervention principles taught in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) core courses to effectively integrate these principles within ESC teams for appropriate care throughout the disaster continuum from the immediate to the long-term recovery process.

This course is designed for trained clergy, chaplains, mental health professionals, and CISM trained crisis responders who desire to enhance their skills in providing Emotional and Spiritual Care to survivors of disaster and trauma.

Suggested but not mandatory prerequisites: Assisting Individuals in Crisis; Group Crisis Intervention; Pastoral Crisis Intervention.

Learning Objectives:

  • One’s own faith tradition and ESC
  • ESC & the Incident Command System
  • ESC & disaster relief operations
  • Physical, psychological, emotional impact of disasters
  • Behavioral, interpersonal and spiritual impact of disasters
  • Range of ESC interventions in the aftermath
  • Suitability to provide ESC
  • Maintaining health during deployment
  • Deployment personal care plans
  • Intervention and care giving concepts


Certificates and Continuing Education:

General Contact Hours: 

Two-Day Course; 14 Contact Hours: 1.4 General CEUs from University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Dept. of Emergency Health Services Professional and Continuing Education (PACE). Based on a formula of 1 Continuing Education Unit for every 10 contact/classroom hours.

ICISF Certificate of Completion:

After the completion of this ICISF course, with verified full attendance, participants are eligible to receive an electronic ICISF Certificate of Completion including General Continuing Education Units. Participants are required to complete a course evaluation prior to receiving this Certificate of Completion.

Completion of ICISF courses and receipt of an ICISF Certificate of Completion does not attest to competence in the field, nor does it provide certification in the field of CISM. 

Profession Specific CEUs:

If you are seeking continuing education requirements for a specific profession, contacting the relevant state licensing board is the best way to ensure you have the most up-to-date and accurate information. They can provide you with specific details regarding whether a Certificate of Completion from a particular course or program will be accepted towards your continuing education requirements. 

If the ICISF course you attend is offered through:

ICISF Virtual Training, Online Training, or Conference, it is approved for the following:

  • EAPA – Employee Assistance Professionals Association             
    14 PDHs; Expiration Date – March 21, 2025

ICISF Speakers Bureau Program: It is up to the Sponsoring Agency to apply for profession-specific Continuing Education Units (CEUs) if they choose to do so.

ICISF Approved-Instructor led Program: While our Approved Instructors have the authority to teach specific ICISF courses, it is their responsibility to apply for profession-specific Continuing Education Units (CEUs) if they choose to do so.

** Please check with your state licensing board prior to registration to see if they will accept the Certificate of Completion as a means for continuing education.

*PLEASE NOTE: These hours are only applicable towards courses offered at Virtual Trainings, Conferences, Online Courses, and the World Congress.

Learn more on our ICISF Continuing Education Information page.

Resources:

National VOAD Disaster Spiritual Care Guidelines

A Disaster Worker’s Daily Prayer

DROP-IT (A post-deployment, out-processing model for emergency services personnel and crisis and disaster relief workers)

National VOAD Points of Consensus Disaster Emotional Care

National VOAD Points of Consensus Disaster Emotional Care (Spanish)

National VOAD Points of Consensus Disaster Spiritual Care

National VOAD Points of Consensus Disaster Spiritual Care (Spanish)