Timeline

BSHS/445 Version 1

University of Phoenix Material

Timeline
Part One
Complete this timeline by including at least 10 events that have played a role in the evolution of crisis
intervention services. Include a 50- to 75-word description of each event.
Event

Event description

Crisis interventions at the time of event

Cocoanut Grove
nightclub fire

The Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in

which was one of the biggest crisis
interventions that happen in 1942. Dr.
Erich Lindemann treated most of the
survivors in which he concluded most of
the 400 patients were suffering with
emotional responses in which in that
case, patients will need psychological
assistance. The survivors were showing
levels of stress caused from the
horrifying incident.

From Lindemanns work it began the

notions of what would be named normal
grief reactions when going through a
disaster. Gerald Caplan was also an
advisor for the patients in which his help
lead to some of the first attempts to
explain in depth exactly what a crisis
consists of and the building of theory in
crisis.

Community
Mental Health
Centers Act of
1963

The Community Mental Health Centers

Act of 1963 changed the process of
delievering mental health services to the
patients. With the act in set, many insane
asylums were closed down and replace
by the mental health centers to provide
24/7 emergency crisis services. There
were a few concepts the patients were
having problems understanding the
complete concept such of personal
documents being kept.

Several social movements were the

reason of the development for the
Community Mental Health Centers.
Some major movements that quickly
shaped crisis intervention were
Alcoholics Anonymous, Vietnam
Veterans, and the Womens Movement of
the 1970s. These few movements that
occurred caused a major crisis
intervention that had many people
desperate for help.

Grassroot
Movements

The crisis interventions that occurred

with all major movements such as
Alcoholics Anonymous, Vietnam
Veterans, and the Womens Movement
was when the Grassroots Movements
began.

The need for crisis intervention services

remains unrecognized by the public and
by existing institutions. It was not until a
critical mass of victims came together to
exert enough legal, political, or economic
pressure to cause the particular crisis
category problem to become formalized.
Until then, it remains informal,
nonprofessional, and unsubsidized.
When the problem is responded to or
handled through informal it means by
former victims, current victims, friends, or
significant others who are affected by the
problem. The free storefront clinics for
Vietnam veterans and the attempt by
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
are examples of grassroots responses to
unmet needs.

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Timeline
BSHS/445 Version 1
Volunteerism

The greatest number of frontline

volunteers are used in staffing 24-hour
suicide hotlines. These hotlines require
an enormous number of crisis workers
because the crisis service never ceases.
Crisis services must be provided 7 days
a week, 52 weeks a year.

The first crisis hotline was provided in

1906 due to the suicide rates being so
high. The name of the crisis hotline was
The National Save-a-Life League.

Need for
Institutionalism

Crisis agencies sometimes attain

eminent success, to the point that it
becomes a vested interest of the human
services professions to formalize the
competencies of the personnel of such
successful agencies through certification,
licensure, and accreditation.

The progression from the humble origins

of Alcoholics Anonymous as a support
group formed by fellow alcoholics in the
1930s to the current classification of
alcoholism as a disease, the proliferation
of thousands of treatment centers around
the world, huge government funding for
research and prevention, and the state
licensure or certification of substance
abuse counselors provides an
outstanding example of the evolution
from self-help by a group of recovering
alcoholics in crisis to the full
institutionalization of the crisis of drug
abuse.

Media and the

Societal
Impetus for
Crisis
Intervention

The medias role in creating awareness

of crises and crisis intervention has
probably generated the most profound
change in public consciousness of what
it means to be in crisis after a large-scale
disaster. Since WWI to present day, the
ability of the media has advanced from
the still-life daguerreotypes to real-time
sound and video of New Orleans citizens
sitting on top of flooded buildings, of
Baghdad residents running from a car
bombing, and the jumpers from the Twin
Towers. It is unclear exactly what impact
such realtime media has on the public,
but clearly it does have an impact and
changes our perception of the world as
ever smaller, more interconnected, and
certainly more dangerous, unsafe, and
crisis prone.

The bombing of the Murrah Federal

Building in Oklahoma City, 9/11,
Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech,
Northern Illinois University, and a variety
of public school shootings have all given
rise to the demand for crisis intervention.
Natural and manmade disasters have
been with us since the city of Pompeii
was buried by Mt. Vesuvius and Rome
was sacked and burned.

Case Against
Too Much
Helping

The rise of postintervention

psychological assistance in the last 20
years, an interesting phenomenon has
emerged. Do-gooder individuals and
paternalistic bureaucracies appear on
the scene and want to straighten things
out and help people.

Van den Eynde and Veno (1999)

reported the case of an Australian
community that literally had to kick
government help out of town after the
discovery of a case of long-term mass
pedophilia in their town. The community
clearly had the situation under control,
but the government kept insisting they
did not.

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Timeline
BSHS/445 Version 1
History of Crisis
Intervention

Formal crisis theory, research, and

intervention comprise is one of the
newest fields in psychotherapy. Most
people would think of formal crisis as
event like 9/11 or natural disasters, and
mostly performed by government
agencies like FEMA or by charitable
organizations like Red Cross and
Salvation Army. It was not until quite
recently that any of these organizations
had anything to do or say about crisis
intervention from a mental health
prespective.

Suicide prevention is the longest running

intervention program in which individual
crisis is addressed from a mental health
standpoint. The first crisis phone line was
established in 1906 by the National
Save-a-Life League (Bloom, 1984).
Research into the causes of suicide,
started in the 1950s, and spanned for six
decades. Suicide has achieved such
importance that it has become an ology
and has a national association devoted
to its study

United States
Department of
Veterans Affairs
now sponsors
the National
Center for
PTSD:
Advancing
Science and
Promoting
Understanding
of Traumatic
Stress

The plight of the Vietnam veterans

suffering from PTSD was largely ignored
until the problem spilled over from the
streets into the seats of power and
authority. The PTSD problem began to
affect members of Congress, the power
of the federal government and the
Veterans Administration were brought in
to not only create a network of veterans
centers throughout the country, but also
to slash bureaucratic red tape to ensure
that services for Vietnam veterans were
taken to the streets where PTSD
sufferers were living rather than requiring
veterans to report to regular VA
hospitals.

The VA hospitals and Military personal

offer a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 day a
year suicide hotline. Most recently they
have added a crisis hotline not just
specializing in suicide but also other
crisises the veterns or military personal
may be facing.

Speciality Crisis
Agencies

Specialty agencies may also attain a

distinct level of recognition by building a
base of national or regional affiliates, as
with various topic-centered hotlines, chat
rooms, and websites. AA chapters;
spouse abuse centers; and victim
assistance programs are known as
specialty agencies.

The conferences range from specialty

areas that bring together some of the
greatest research minds in the field.
Such as, the First Annual Conference on
Trauma, Loss, and Dissociation in 1995
to the Annual Convening of Crisis
Intervention Personnel, which provides
practical, hands-on programs for crisis
interventionists, and the Crisis
Intervention Team (CIT) convention for
police officers who deal with the mentally
ill.

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Timeline
BSHS/445 Version 1

Part Two
Write a 750- to 1,050-word discussion of the effects of events on crisis interventions. This discussion
must describe how these events may have affected multicultural awareness. Choose four of the events
from Part One to discuss.
Throughout society there have been a variety of events that have occurred in which crisis interventions
became in effect. Crisis events strike indivduals all differently,but still seem to leave the patients in a
similar sedation when they try communicating to others in society. Events that have happened over sixty
years ago lead an important role in society today. Due to the past events there are a variety of
experiences and services to provide to patients enduring with crisis interventions because of the
standards built within the past years. The following events from within the past will be discussed further
such as Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, Grassroot Movements, Volunteerism, and United
States Department of Veterans Affairs now sponsored by the National Center for PTSD.
The discussion of the four events that have a major effect on society enduring many crisis interventions is
the sole purpose of providing guided essentials to help those individuals unstable in their environment.
Services are provided to multicultural, in which best described as to individuals from all ethnicities who
need to receive professional help. Adler (1997) defines culture as that complex whole which includes
knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, morals, customs and capabilities acquired by a person as a member of
society. It is a way of life of a group of people, the configuration of all the more or less stereotyped
patterns of learned behavior which are handed down from one generation to the next through the means
of language and imitation. The true definition of Adlers words is to understand that it does not matter the
ethnicity of an individual, what matters is understanding the same beliefs, morals, and customes to
overcoming an unfortunate event.
The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 changed the process of delievering mental health
services to patients. As insane asylums were closing doors, soon they would be replaced by mental
health facilities to treat all patients dealing with an emergency crisis. The mental health facilities were
open 24/7 and provided services to anyone who needed professional services. With a care center that is
open 24/7, individuals were able to easily access help and due to this change connections were built.
Many patients were experiencing the same problems and were able to relate to one another as there
were victims from their same personal experiences. The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963
brought indivudals of all cultures together to help one another through hard experiences in their lives.
Another event that provided multicultural awareness was the Grassroot Movement. With the Grassroot
Movement in effect a few major movements helped the movement become known such as the Alcoholics
Anonymous, Vietname Veterans, and the Womens Movement. The need for crisis intervention services
was remaining unrecognized by the public until the victims came toether to exert through legally,
politically, and economically through pressure. There are free storefront cinics who have experiences with
responses of unmet needs such as for Vietnam Veterans and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The
Grassroot Movements have intentions to help, but unfortunetly cannot receive responses it hoped for.
The greatest number of frontline volunteers are used in staffing 24-hour suicide hotlines. These specific
hotlines require an enormous number of crisis workers because the crisis services never cease. The goal
for crisis centers are to be providing services seven days a week and fifty two weeks a year. The first
crisis hotline was created in 1906 named The National Save-a-Life League strictly structured to help those
suffering from sucide thoughts. Due to the high level of sucide rates this call center was a much needed
factor. Unfortunetly suicide was common in the years before todays society in which hotlines have had a
series of great feedback from the services provided by telephone.
The topic of PTSD best described as post traumatic stress disorder, is nothing new to society. Although
not all individuals care to support the post veterans, there are still some individuals who have a heart to
help. PTSD is a large ignored problem and until the authority realized what issues were happening
nothing had changed. The power of the people and of the authority, created a network for veterans to be

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Timeline
BSHS/445 Version 1
supported by rather than being excluded for medical services.
All of the movements explained further in detail, provide how mulitculture is served in many ways. Society
today can only hope to help all individuals suffering from crisis. The purpose of human services
professionals is to guide those suffering to a better understanding of how great life can be once a person
comes to terms with their unfortunate crisis. Today crisis interventions are handled with help from
movements that happened many years ago and because of those movements, individuals will be able to
receive the care they need to overcome their battles.

Copyright 2013 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved.