Misunderstood mental illnesses are at the root of the hottest, most dangerous, and the most difficult calls you'll ever manage as a 911 professional. Yet there is almost no education available to dispatchers to equip you with the knowledge about psychological disorders you need to excel at intervention when it matters most. Did you know there are officially over 300 mental disorders, and the Top Ten account for the vast majority of calls you take involving homicide, suicide, and domestic violence? In this ground-breaking course,  Jim Marshall, Director of 911 Training Institute, will take you on a fascinating tour of these 10 most challenging disorders to help you gain powerful  insights leading to better call outcomes.  You will explore Mood Disorders including Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, and Dissociative Disorders including the illness formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Participants will gain an understanding of the Personality Disorders driving many 911 crisis calls including Narcissist, Antisocial, and Borderline personalities. We will also explore the role of addictions and substances combined with traumatic stress in all these disorders. Yet, ultimately there is no way to understand and help each unique caller if we see him or her only as a label. Jim will offer real-life case studies from his clinical practice to help you gain the insight to truly know what it is like to struggle with these disorders. Offering these callers an effective response requires both compassion yet a savvy ability to challenge them to take a wise step to resolve the crisis for everyone's best interest.
 
COURSE OBJECTIVES FOR "1096 WHO ARE YOU?"


Students who complete this course will:
 
1. Identify key symptoms of 10 psychological disorders experienced by the most difficult non-medical 911 crisis calls
2. Recognize how specific caller complaints, negative attitudes, and toxic call behaviors are fueled by these disorders
3. Gain awareness of toxic attitudes/perceptions of difficult calls among dispatchers that fuel inaccurate judgments, impaired compassion and call management failures/errors
4. Gain increased awareness of the causes of these disorders, and the role of alcohol, drugs, medications, and organic mental illnesses (such as Alzheimer's, closed head injuries, diabetes, etc.)
5. Identify call-management strategies to emotionally "ground" distressed callers and improve cooperation for better call outcomes
6. Recognize steps to improved communication with field responders to assure mental health assistance for callers requiring psychiatric care.
 
These objectives will be achieved by active class discussion, lecture, case studies, small group exercises, role play, and review of actual call recordings.

Biography: James Marshall, M.A., L.L.P. has been a clinical psychotherapist for 24 years and is the Director of 911 Training Institute, in Petoskey, Michigan. The Institute is devoted to equipping 911 dispatchers with the skills and knowledge they need to foster personal health and peak performance as they face traumatic stress with high-risk callers in the high-stress PSAP. He has developed curriculum addressing 911 stress, toxic PSAP relationships, suicide call management, understanding how mental illnesses drive crisis calls, and intervening in domestic violence. 

Working to prevent and improve high-stress relationships in the 911 Centers, Jim has trained over 2,500 911 dispatchers, serves as Co-chair of the National Emergency Number Association Working Group on Post-Traumatic Stress and Co-chair of the training subcommittee of the NENA Working Group on Suicide. Jim was invited to conduct a full day Pre-Conference course on 911 traumatic stress and moderate policy forums on this topic at the 2011 NENA Operations Development Conference in Nashville. He presented trauma education workshops at the annual NENA National Conference in Minneapolis in June 2011 and was the keynote speaker at the 2011 Michigan NENA Conference. His articles on traumatic stress, dispatcher health, and suicide prevention have been published in Emergency Communication Professional magazine, Dispatch Magazine On-Line, and he is the author of Journey into Love-an interactive multimedia experience for couples.