Crisis Counseling: Strategies and Interventions to Safely Manage Clients – Harry Keener

Course Description

Crisis Counseling: Strategies and Interventions to Safely Manage Clients – Harry Keener

• Assessing for suicide, homicide and violence
• Risk management of high risk clients
• Ethical and legal issues in crisis intervention
• What every clinician needs to know about psychiatric medications
• Clinicians in crisis: Burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma

Clinicians must deal with mental health emergencies at an alarming rate and  it is not a question of  if  a crisis will occur, but  when.

Emergencies in mental health happen every day in all types of settings. Sadly, crisis intervention remains a neglected component of education, training and supervision in clinical preparation programs.

Now more than ever it is critical for all helping professionals to correctly assess and -triage various types of mental health emergencies and the attendant ethical and legal ramifications of crisis intervention.  Knowing practical strategies for crisis management  ensures the safety of both clients and therapists. This seminar will give you these strategies.

As a seasoned clinician with years in the mental health field, Harry Keener, PhD, LPC, LMFT, will provide you with invaluable tools for assessing, triaging and managing clients in crisis. This seminar will provide the skills you need to effectively assess and safely manage crises of lethality and will improve your knowledge regarding crises due to illicit and licit medication usage.

Dr. Keener will explore the legal and ethical issues related to crisis intervention in such clinical issues as mandated reporting, psychotic decompensation in clients, and the duty to warn.

You will come away with new confidence and a reputation with your colleagues that you can:

• Assess, triage and manage suicidal, homicidal and violent clients
• Develop safety plans that work
• Minimize crises due to psychotropic medication misuse
• Protect your liability through appropriate documentation
• Know the legal and ethical issues associated with crisis intervention

1. Maximize knowledge of ethical and legal implications of mental health emergencies.
2. Demonstrate how to complete a thorough mental status interview to better assess for psychosis, suicide, homicide, and violence.
3. Display knowledge of crises of lethality including crisis intervention strategies.
4. Describe appropriate clinical documentation to minimize legal liability.
5. Develop effective safety plans for mental health emergencies to promote client safety.
6. Maximize knowledge of psychotropic medications and their interactions to minimize medication emergencies.
7. Create awareness of burnout, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue and strategies to promote healthy self-care.

Legal and Ethical Obligations in Crises Situations

• The similarities & differences between ethical and legal responsibilities
• When to use safety contracts and -no-harm contracts
• Court cases and mental health law that impact crisis management
• Mandated reporting
• Documentation strategies that protect you legally and ethically

Clinical Assessment of Psychiatric Disorders

• Understanding and identifying psychotic symptoms
• Psychiatric disorders that heighten risk of crises
• Interplay of substance abuse, trauma and mental health emergencies
• Assessing and diagnosing common psychiatric disorders

Psychotropic Medication and Mental Health Crises

• Improve knowledge of psychotropic medications and their intended effect
• Psychotic medications and dangerous interactional affects
• Metabolic issues with typical and atypical anti-psychotics
• Medications with narrow therapeutic rangers
• How to assertively collaborate with prescribers
• How to work with clients to safely manage medication side effects

Risk Assessment in Suicidal Clients

• Risk versus protective factors in suicide
• Identifying clients at high risk for suicide
• Develop clinical safety plans
• Strategies and techniques to assess suicide risk
• Difference between self-injurious behavior and suicide
• When to hospitalize and how
• Managing suicidal clients in an outpatient setting
• Psychometric suicide risk assessments

Homicidal and Violence Risk Assessment

• How to safely assess the homicidal client
• Maintaining safety for yourself, co-workers and clients
• Identifying the types of aggression
• Preparing for and managing client violence with the PAR model
• Risk factors for violence
• Handling threats of violence in the office, school and workplace
• When and how to hospitalize

Emergencies from Substance Abuse

• Assessing the chemically dependent client
• Interview strategies and techniques
• When to refer for medically-supervised detoxification
• The multiple levels of care addiction
• Strategies for assessing and working with dually diagnosed clients

Burnout, Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma: Therapists in Crisis

• Burnout, vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue
• Interplay between burnout and compassion fatigue
• Strategies for counseling the burned out therapist
• Techniques to address vicarious trauma
• Use of the PRoQOL5 instrument to better inform treatment