Hi, welcome back. In this video we will explain the implication of the families during psychological first aid. In a critical incident situation, mostly when there are kids, it is important that the family can get involved in the incident management and that the psychological first aid application on kids can be done by these kids' referents. Why is this so important? Because to kids it is much more relaxing seeing the reference figure telling them, and they might even be more open to understand him, than the fact that these explanation and this care guidelines or this comfort comes from an stranger, from any participant, right? So, which benefits can we get from the fact that the family applies psychological first aid? On one side, more effectiveness. Kids will trust a reference, figure which also involves the fact that parents applying psychological first aid make them also have some feeling management and involvement in the situation managing, which will calm them down and they will transmit this calm feeling to their sons. On another side, the whole family reduces anxiety because they work together with the same goals. On another side, it diminishes the abandon chance, right? As we have already said in some videos, it isn't good taking kids away from the critical incident's focus, so in this sense the fact of involving parents in the application of psychological first aid causes that although they might be very affected they will be a part of this process and don't forget about their kids or move the attention focus from their kids to other aspects. Which obstacles can we find in the application of first aid? Well, as we were saying, the fact that the family, the parents are also affected, will ease all this process and probably the application of these psychological first aid will be complicated by the parents' activation level or state of shock. It's normal, kids aren't the only affected ones we must take care of, all the family will be harmed. The same way, the entire family will be an important part during this management process. And this entire family could be a beneficial factor, a protective factor, but it also might be an obstacle because usually familiar advice or opinions are very important and complicate this process. Usually the fact that this family is giving its opinion, generates behaviors such as the one we just said, such as separating kids. No, don't worry, I'll stay home with the kids, you should recover and worry about the processes you must do. No way, kids must be with their parents and they must live and pass through the process as well as their parents, and with them. And finally, they also tend to overprotection, an overprotection we usually develop in this kind of situations, as we try to take away any negative aspect from kids and overprotecting the family, and we refugee ourselves in the family core. It's important considering this as an obstacle, as it will difficult the management and development process, the normal evolution in these situations. Which are the steps we must follow in the application of psychological first aid with kids? Well, they are five: contain, calm down, inform, normalize and comfort. In this section you have some specific videos divided in age ranges, from zero to three, from three to six... Each age range has its specifications but the stages are common to all the kids and teenagers range. So, we must be aware of the stages and then simply we adapt them to the age range we are going to work with. As we have already said it is very important that this psychological first aid is applied by the referent relatives to increase the benefits psychological first aid have. Another thing we must take into account, is the difference between daily emergencies and massive emergencies. In other videos we also talk about this, and why is it so important? Why do we remark it? Because the causes of the different emergencies will influence on the posterior management and development, on the evolution of the people involved in this emergence. As in example, in daily crisis there is only one or two families affected, right? But not the effect, the immediate environment doesn't have an affectation, it's free of affectation so this involves that at a public or state resources or activated aid level there won't be many, in fact we will have the same ones as in our daily life. However, most of the family members will have to take part on the crisis management, right? The death of a close relative, we will need to organize, we will need to make bureaucracy, we will have to manage many things apart from our own recovery. Instead in massive emergencies there is a global affectation. Many people is affected and this makes all the immediate environment affected. What does this generate? It generates that the State, the different organizations and institutions activate help and comforting resources for the affected people, extraordinarily. We have more resources to face a critical situation when it's a massive emergency. It is also true that in this kind of situations, the emergency management, the crisis management shouldn't be done by only one family, it is usually done by the participant teams that manage the emergency. Well, finally, let's talk about which mistakes can we make or which errors are usually made in the management or the psychological first aid application on kids? We can make errors due to an excess. We might try to apply psychological first aid to kids by ourselves, criticize or discredit psychological first aid or the management parents are doing, and mostly being too overprotective with this family and the management they are doing, encouraging them to delegate its management. Each family needs to manage its own emergency. Or at least focus only on the parents, giving guidelines on how they should act with kids, not giving them guidelines on the moments right after the emergency, focusing only on the adults. This would be a common error, right? even talking in front of kids without taking them into account, are things we must avoid when applying psychological first aid. Although we shouldn't apply them on kids, we must manage, be able to do it properly with parents taking kids into account. Finally and to finish this video, there are five things we must always take into account: we will never blame on anyone, either if they are doing it good or wrong, or if we detect errors, we will never blame on the person that just suffered an emergency. Always, no matter the circumstances, we must respect the religious beliefs of the person in front of us. It is important that we adapt to the different environments. The same way we will respect the cultural variables, it is very different the way of facing a death in a Gypsy family than in an Israelite family with Jewish beliefs, isn't it? So we must respect their way of confronting and managing this particular crisis. We mustn't limit people's autonomy, we mustn't limit them, we mustn't forbid them doing things, we must simply recommend, give them some guidelines and then they will be the ones to finally decide. Least but not last, not tearing anyone apart. This includes kids, we said we must include them in everything: psychological first aid, the rituals development, etc. But we also shouldn't tear grandparents or uncles apart, being an extensive family doesn't mean they aren't affected. Let's watch anyone who can be affected and involved in each emergency.
