Crisis Services: Crisis Care Supervisors Core Competencies
To be effective, programs serving people experiencing mental health and substance use emergencies must employ the concept of parallel process. This means the organization exhibits commitment or fidelity to its values at all levels of operation. The way administrators interact with supervisors and supervisors interact with staff mirrors the best practices they expect staff to employ in working with the individuals they serve.
Core competencies are the capacity to effectively perform a role or function, often described as clusters of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Community crisis care workers require a specific set of core competencies to effectively address and manage mental health and substance use emergencies. The term crisis is used in this guide to describe both mental health and substance use crisis situations.
Those who supervise crisis workers should meet the Crisis Care Worker Core Competencies and, in addition, meet related competencies that reflect these same values at a leadership level.
Developed by a committee
The core competencies listed here were developed by a committee of people who have experienced mental health and substance use crisis situations and the services provided by Wisconsin’s crisis system of care, county crisis workers, county crisis supervisors, staff with the Behavioral Health Training Partnership at UW-Green Bay, and staff with Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
The core competencies listed here promote worker satisfaction and confidence, support workforce retention, and ensure effective service delivery. While specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes may vary based upon contextual factors, the following characteristics define some of the essential markers of quality supervision in the field of mental health and substance use crisis care. These competencies can be used to guide the hiring, training, and evaluating the effectiveness of crisis care supervisors.
Behavioral Health Training Partnership at UW-Green Bay
The Behavioral Health Training Partnership at UW-Green Bay supports best practices in behavioral health services.
Five key principles or values
- Trauma-informed care
- Psychological safety for staff
- Cultural responsiveness
- Self-awareness and stress management
- Collaborative teaming
Each key principle or value has a least one competency. Each competency has a set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be successful.
Trauma-informed care
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Provides initial orientation and ongoing education to crisis staff on trauma-informed care.
- Understands the prevalence and impact of past trauma on individuals, including those who practice in the behavioral health field.
- Models and upholds the standard for use of non-judgmental, non-shaming language within the team (examples: in team staffings and daily conversation)
- Routinely focuses on an individual’s (worker’s and client’s) strengths, resilience, and potential for growth.
- Understands the impacts and signs of secondary traumatic stress in crisis care workers, while implementing strategies to mitigate the effects.
- Provides ample opportunities for crisis care staff to disclose and process work-related trauma that may impact their effectiveness.
- Identifies and manages situations in which a crisis care worker is not emotionally stable enough to perform crisis care work.
Psychological safety for staff
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Develops and implements clear and consistent policies and procedures to guide crisis care work—ensures all staff are well trained in internal policies and procedures (including policies and procedures related to physical and psychological safety).
- Attends promptly to staff concerns regarding physical and emotional safety on the job.
- Provides regular and consistent clinical supervision for staff using reflective supervision practices to allow staff the opportunity to process not only challenging cases, but also the impact of the work on themselves.
- Ensures availability of clinical/supervisory back-up for staff at all times, including after hours, to provide emotional support and assist with difficult decision-making.
- Prioritizes ongoing growth and professional development for staff, including providing alternate coverage for work while staff are in training to ensure they will not be deterred or disrupted while participating.
- Provides opportunity for staff debriefing following particularly challenging situations.
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Creates a psychologically safe work environment by ensuring staff assess personal self-care and stress management needs.
- Encourages staff to use professional supports, including counseling and employee assistance program services, as needed.
- Promotes a workplace culture that understands the need for collective care principles.
Cultural responsiveness
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Makes active efforts in hiring to build a diverse workforce that is reflective of the community the program serves.
- Stays current on education and training related to diversity, equity, and inclusion principles and resources.
- Ensures staff are trained and have resources on issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, implicit bias, and cultural differences among individuals and communities served.
- Challenges and leads staff in implementation of practices that demonstrate an awareness and appreciation for diversity.
- Reviews policies, procedures, and paperwork on a frequent basis using a lens of equity and inclusion with modifications made as needed.
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Demonstrates an understanding of cultural diversity, including intersecting identifiers of age, race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, religion, and socio-economic status.
- Demonstrates a respect for the values, preferences, beliefs, culture, experiences, and identities of each employee as an individual.
- Approaches every individual with genuine curiosity and openness to learn about their unique culture and how it is expressed.
- Communicates with awareness and knowledge of cultural differences and attempts to accommodate those differences.
- Seeks to understand the varying communication styles of staff and linguistic differences.
- Recognizes diverse learning styles and has an ability to adapt training and information to accommodate communications styles of staff and linguistic differences.
- Communicates, both nonverbally and verbally, a demeanor that is knowledgeable and accepting of cultural differences.
- Views cultural differences as a source of resilience for staff and individuals served.
- Supports and coaches staff whose own cultural identity may be disrespected or harmed in the course of their work to ensure they can continue to center the needs of the person experiencing the crisis.
Self-awareness and stress management
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Exhibits a well-regulated demeanor and respectful tone in supervision, support, and consultation.
- Maintains an awareness of one’s own trauma background and how that may impact the supervision of staff; seeks informal and formal support to process trauma as needed.
- Examines one’s own cultures, worldviews, and biases on a continuous basis, including how these could influence supervision of staff.
- Uses supervision and support proactively in effort to maintain their own wellness and professional effectiveness.
- Identifies and defines self-care practices and stress management needs.
- Prioritizes work-life balance, self-care strategies, and overall wellness for staff to mitigate the impact of secondary traumatic stress.
- Establishes and models healthy professional boundaries.
Collaborative teaming
Knowledge, skills, and attitudes
- Regularly communicates with key community partners, including law enforcement agencies, jails, hospital emergency departments, child/adult protective services, and inpatient/residential providers to promote shared understanding of all systems.
- Responds to and helps mediate any problems or potentially contentious issues with community partners on behalf of the crisis care team.
- Demonstrates, models, and promotes healthy working relationships and partnerships and the ability to handle situations with conflict in a professional manner.
- Understands the value of working with peer providers; takes active steps to engage peers in the crisis care system and implement the use of peers intentionally with respect to the role and scope of a peer, which is non-clinical.
- Assists staff in understanding the roles and scopes of practice of various professionals involved in crisis response and how to work toward a common goal.
- Stresses the importance of staff partnering with families, guardians, and other natural supports.
- Assists staff in recognizing situations that may require mandated reporting and assists them in making reports as needed.
- Executes memoranda of understanding or similar agreements with community partners where helpful and appropriate.
Download a copy of the crisis care supervisors core competencies (PDF)
Acknowledgements
The crisis care supervisor core competencies were created with funding from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration under contract number HHSS283201700024I75S20321F42001 entitled Transformation Transfer Initiative and the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors under subcontract number SC-3039.3-WI-01.
Public domain notice
This material is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied without permission. Citation of the source is appreciated. However, this material may not be reproduced or distributed for a fee without the specific, written authorization of the Division of Care and Treatment Services.