A Comprehensive Stress Management Program for Correctional Employees

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (MCDOCR) Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Program is a comprehensive, multi-faceted stress management program designed to help correctional employees build resistance to resist distress, impairment and dysfunction; increase their capacity for resilience to rebound from distress; and aid them in recovering from damages incurred by exposure to traumatic incidents. Led by a mental health professional and delivered by a team of specially trained peers from all disciplines, the program utilizes a variety of interventions to achieve its goals, including promotion of wellness and positive stress management skills, and individual and group interventions following traumatic incidents. One of the goals of Montgomery County Government is to provide a responsible and accountable county government and for employees to embody this by engaging in, among other things, collaboration, innovation, respect for the individual, fiscal prudence and integrity. The CISM program reflects this goal and these values as it helps employees to maintain maximum productivity, while reducing costs associated with turnover and sick leave, by encouraging positive stress management skills and addressing the trauma created by and inherent to working in a correctional environment.