Stress First Aid

What is Stress First Aid?

Dr. with patient in waiting room

Stress First Aid is a self-care and peer support model developed for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and since adapted for civilian first responders and healthcare providers.  It includes seven actions that can help you identify and address early signs of stress reactions in yourself and others in an ongoing way.  As staff in a long-term care facility, you have the stress of caring for vulnerable individuals with serious medical and cognitive issues who may be reacting poorly to extended social isolation. Stress First Aid offers a flexible framework of tools for addressing stress reactions that can hopefully reduce the likelihood that these reactions will develop into more severe or long-term problems. 

Stress First Aid Toolkit

Long-term care staff are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic response, working hard to protect residents from the threat of infection. To help long-term care staff develop more effective self-care and coworker support, we’ve adapted a model that was designed to mitigate stress in military settings. 

Stress First Aid Module on CollaborNation

There is another free Stress First Aid training module in the Geriatric Education area of the training site CollaborNation. It can be taken for continuing education units.

Instructions on setting up an account and getting to the course can be found here.