The Assaulted Staff Action Program (ASAP)

A nurse is robbed at gunpoint in the emergency room. A factory supervisor is assaulted by line staff. A high school girl is raped in the school locker room. A corrections officer is stabbed by an inmate. Yearly. Monthly. Daily. Hourly. Somewhere has become a victim of violence. In the aftermath of these events, human suffering in the form of the acute distress of psychological trauma and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder may follow. What can be done? The Assaulted Staff Action Program (ASAP) addresses this need. ASAP is a voluntary, peer-help, systems-wide, crisis intervention approach for coping with the psychological aftermath of violence. ASAP is a Critical Incident Stress Management approach that includes individual crisis counseling, group debriefings, and employee victims' support group, employee victim family outreach, and professional referrals, when needed. ASAP, the most widely researched program of its kind in the world, is associated with providing needed support to employee victims and with sharp reductions in the frequency of violence in many of the facilities, where it is fielded. ASAP programs pay for themselves by means of sustained productivity, less medical and legal expense, and reduced human suffering. This book is a step-by-step manual that shows you and your organization how to design and field an ASAP program for your needs.