International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.

Advanced Practices for Healing First Responder Grief

Requesting This Course:

Course Description

Have you experienced a CISM debriefing that was helpful in easing the effects of the critical incident but still left you with unaddressed pain and sadness?
Have you been the CISM provider/peer supporter and walked away satisfied that you helped the first responders but knowing that they needed more—or even that your own emotions needed attention? In these cases, grief, traumatic grief, and their companion lack of hope are feelings that might be connected to first response work, critical incident stress management, and living in general. Not only are these emotions connected to first response work, but they also can interfere with the job if left unaddressed.
Particularly in first response work, feelings of unattended grief are often unrecognized, unaddressed, compartmentalized, and stacked up; such grief can eventually overwhelm bereaved first responders who may be unaware of, or ashamed by, why they feel so bad. In this two-day training, participants will wear several “hats” as they explore their emotions and actions of grief as it has emerged (or may emerge in the future) over years of first response work or of supporting first responders. This training asks participants to wear four “hats” as it teaches them about grief, grieving, and mourning, as well as emotions of loss and actions that address loss. It applies these concepts to the individual participant’s inevitable human losses (hat #1), workplace grief regarding peer deaths through various means including suicide (hat #2), grief and sadness they may not express when working as peer supporters (hat #3), and the grief they witness and feel for victims of critical incidents (hat #4). Among the ways of addressing years of stacked-up grief, this training offers an actionable definition of hope that can help when grieving various losses.
This training identifies and engages abundant exercises designed to lead participants to personal awareness of grief; a working ability to support first responder peers in grief; and self-reflection about their own stacked-up grief and how it affects themselves, their workplace peer groups, their CISM outreach, and their families. The course delves deeper into the core elements of grief, grieving, and mourning taught in the “Foundations of Grief for First Responders” ICISF course as well as well as symbolic actions and other memorialization to support self-reflection, post-traumatic growth, and healing.

Prerequisite: Foundations of Grief for First Responders

Learning Objectives

  • Identify grief, grieving, and mourning as they occur in life-based situations, particularly in the context of first response.
  • Understand and adapt the concept of hope as it applies to critical incident grief in various settings.
  • Explain why grief can be difficult to address in contemporary Western cultures and in first response jobs
  • Discuss disenfranchised, ambiguous, moral injury, and other grief as related to the job
  • Recognize and identify the differences and similarities between grief and traumatic grief
  • Describe how and in what ways “stacked-up” grief applies to oneself
  • Apply practical strategies for addressing both old and new griefs, as well as doing grief maintenance work
  • Developing a case-specific ceremony, ritual, or memorial that addresses first responder grief
  • Learn to engage self- care in grief situations after critical incidents in which personal and professional worlds collide
  • Use (G) SAFER-R as an addition to CISM’s SAFER-R to help understand and unpack first responder grief
  • Select other grief models and tools to fit a variety of self-identified scenarios


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:

  • NAADAC – the Association for Addiction Professionals

    14 CE Credits; Expiration Date – February 28, 2027

This course has been approved by International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF), as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider # 87914, International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF), is responsible for all aspects of the programing.

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. 

** 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.