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Could your organisation handle a terrorist attack?

In the first of a four-part series on responding to the increased terror threat, Anne Payne discusses how to prepare for a traumatic event. Article Anne Payne is co-founder of Validium.
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In the first of a four-part series on responding to the increased terror threat, Anne Payne, co-founder of Validium, discusses how to prepare for a traumatic event.

With three terrorist attacks in as many months, and counter-terrorist experts warning of a ‘completely different’ level of terrorist threat, the sad reality is that it’s only a matter of time before another atrocity is carried out. In response, employers are tightening or introducing security measures, such as dynamic lockdown procedures, and sharing the government’s Run, Hide, Tell advice with employees. But how else do you prepare for a traumatic event as horrifying as a terrorist attack, when they’re unexpected bolts from the blue which no one anticipated when they set off for work that morning?

Preparing for the unexpected
When you can’t predict exactly what might happen, it’s important to think about how to define an incident that might require a support plan to be put into action. For many employers, this is considered to be ‘any event which has the potential to cause distress to a number of employees’, regardless of whether or not it was serious enough to stop the business from functioning. For example, although the Westminster attack featured only one man with a car and a knife, and was stopped before it managed to breach the doors of Parliament. The loss of life outside their place of work and trauma of being locked inside, while police shot dead their would-be attacker, was rightly considered distressing enough to bring the business of government to a halt.

In this sense, modern continuity planning is no longer just about how to keep the business moving, and protect and recover systems and services, but also how best to help people to recover from exposure to trauma or the sudden death of a colleague. Rather than trying to be too prescriptive about specific scenarios, preparing for a terrorist atrocity requires HR to come together with safety, security, risk, communications and OH colleagues, as well as relevant external wellbeing providers, to create an incident team to deal with: First response: News of a terror attack is unlikely to come via traditional channels, such as a line manager, but rather the news, social media or an employee who witnessed something. Whatever the source, once an incident is deemed serious enough to invoke the plan, members of the incident team will need to quickly come together to confirm the facts and deliver their initial actions. Then meet again to decide next steps. It’s important to consider how critical incidents unfold and prepare statements and actions in advance because of how quickly events move.

Roles and responsibilities: To provide an effective and coordinated response, members of the team must agree in advance who is responsible for what. Who should be liaising with the emergency services, next of kin, employees, customers and the media? Who should decide next steps, with regard to closing down the business and sending people home or keeping services running? What other actions might need to be taken to restore employees to a position of safety and calm? Preparing managers: If they’ve been exposed to a terror attack, employees, and any customers caught up in events, will be frightened, shocked and operating from a primitive ‘fight, flight or freeze’ brain. They won’t be making rational decisions. Instead, they’ll want to get away from the situation, fight their way out or lie down motionless, hoping not to be targeted by the threat. By preparing managers to understand these psychological responses, you can increase their ability to cope themselves and support others.

Showing compassion: Although professionally trained trauma management specialists can be swiftly deployed in the aftermath of an incident, it’s the immediate response of managers and business leaders that can often have the biggest impact on preventing long-term psychological injuries. When managers show compassion and respond to people’s basic needs, it allows those affected to recover some sense of safety again and return to normal functioning as quickly as possible. In this sense, those on the ground have a significant role in reducing long-term emotional damage (more on this in next week’s column).

Psychological support: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) now discourages the use of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, as it’s currently felt that getting employees to speak about their experiences too soon can do more harm than good. Instead, although employees should be made aware that experiencing flashbacks, insomnia and a desire to avoid the place where the incident happened is normal, it can take longer for more serious psychological ill-health, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to emerge. If employees are still struggling to overcome the natural symptoms of being exposed to trauma after four weeks, they should be directed towards appropriate support, such as trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Painful as it is to think about employees being caught up in a terrorist attack, or other traumatic event, it’s important to have a properly thought through plan. The alternative is trying to come up with one in the thick of events, when those responsible for delivering it might be traumatised themselves. Anne Payne is co-founder of Validium, the mental health consultancy, which provides employee wellbeing, trauma and rehabilitation services.
Next week: How to administer psychological first aid: advice for limiting psychological damage after someone’s been exposed to terror or trauma.

www.validium.com

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