KPD Staffer heads up regional CISM Team

When Kelly Sheridan presented to Kyle City Council on Dec. 5, she was operating on roughly two hours of sleep in the past 48. Sheridan, the Victim Services Coordinator for Kyle PD, is a co-coordinator of the Hays County Regional CISM team (Hays CISM). CISM stands for Critical Incident Stress Management.
 
On December 4, San Marcos Police Officer Kenneth Copeland was shot and killed in the line of duty. Sheridan’s team was among the first group called in to assist Copeland’s professional colleagues with the shock of his tragic death.
 
“We conducted diffusings for about 50 people who worked with Officer Copeland,” Sheridan told council members.
 
Many Kyle Police Department staff also knew and worked with Copeland. After his funeral, Sheridan’s team, along with Texas Department of Public Safety and the Austin Police Department CISM teams, conducted nine debriefings with first responders from several local agencies.
 
What does a CISM Team do?
 
“We provide crisis intervention,” Sheridan told council. “It’s called psychological first aid to get [first responders] through that hump right after a critical incident.”
 
She said members of the Hays CISM include persons in the areas of law enforcement, EMS, fire, mental health, chaplains, dispatchers and family support professionals.
 
The Hays CISM Team, lead by co-coordinators Sheridan and San Marcos PD’s Roya Williamson, started in November 2015 with 17 members.
 
Sheridan said the Hays CISM Team provided 12 different debriefings in four counties within the first six months of its founding. During that same time they also did four diffusings and numerous one-on-ones.
 
“In 2017 as of the time I wrote this, we’d done 10 debriefings and four diffusions,” Sheridan said.
 
She noted that following Officer Copeland’s death, those numbers went up.
 
All Hays CSIM volunteers go through a two-day training from the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation using the Jeffry Mitchell model.
 
“It’s a seven-stage intervention model that we use for first responders to help them work through these tragedies,” Sheridan said.
 
[NOTE: Jeffrey T. Mitchell, Ph.D., is a Clinical Professor of Emergency Health Services at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, Maryland and President Emeritus of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation. He is widely cited as an expert in critical incident stress management for first responders.]
 
The now 22-member Hays CISM team* volunteers to help their professional colleagues after critical incidents, such as mass casualties, a line-of-duty death of a first responder, the suicide of a first responder and events or fatalities involving children.
 
“We offer assistance to ensure first responders can work through the stress of that critical incident,” Sheridan said, adding that sometimes after such an incident, first responders are not inclined to talk about what happened or how they are dealing with the aftermath.
 
“They bottle it up,” she told council, “which can lead to more stress, which can ultimately lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, potentially leading to suicide.”
 
Sheridan said a CISM team is able to mitigate first responders going down that negative path after a critical incident.
 
“We can keep first responders going,” she said.
 
Following Hurricane Harvey in late August, Sheridan’s team was called out to assist first responders in the Rockport/Fulton area, which was among the hardest hit by the storm.
 
“Our CISM team was one of the first called in to help,” she said.
 
They were originally slated to assist four agencies. Over the four days, Sheridan said the team ended up helping a total of 410 individuals from 24 agencies.
 
Her team was also on call to assist in Houston following the devastating flooding. As part of the Texas CISM Network, Sheridan said the team can be called out to critical incidents across the state. While they weren’t called out to Houston, they were ready if needed.
 
Just weeks after helping in flood devastated areas along the coast, the Hays CISM team headed to Sutherland Springs following a mass shooting at the town’s First Baptist Church. Twenty-six individuals perished, including children.
 
Sheridan said the Hays CISM Team was one of two teams called in following the incident; her team helped first responders from three different agencies.
 
“We assisted about 50 people during those interventions,” she said. “I’m pretty proud of that,” she said.

*The Hays County Regional CISM team is comprised of first responders from Kyle Police Department, Kyle Fire Department, Buda Police Department, San Marcos Police Department, San Marcos EMS, San Marcos Fire Department and Hays County Sheriff’s Office (Corrections Bureau).

What is a 'Critical Incident'? Any situation faced by emergency service personnel that causes them to experience unusually strong emotional reactions which have the potential to interfere with their ability to function either at the scene or later. All that is necessary is that the incident, regardless of the type, generates unusually strong feelings in the emergency workers.