Critical incident stress debriefing (psychological debriefs) are no longer considered best practice in the management of individual wellbeing following a Critical Incident or Potentially Traumatic Event (PTE). Psychological debriefings should not be confused with operational debriefings. Operational debriefs are still an essential tool to refine and improve operational police work.

Psychological First Aid is an evidence informed approach adopted by the QPS and most other first responder agencies. It aims to provide an individually tailored response to those exposed to PTEs. Furthermore, it supports short and long-term adaptive coping strategies, and for the majority of people, this type of aid will be all that they need.

Psychological wellbeing is a shared responsibility and as such PFA can be delivered by anyone with basic PFA training. It should be acknowledged that while the nature of policing will expose members to PTEs, most members will not experience long-term psychological harm.  Additional to members own personal resilience, PFA provides foundational support in the immediate aftermath of exposure to assist alleviate against any psychological harm and improve psychological safety.

Click here to view the PFA Wellbeing Plan.

Actions of PFA

The practical delivery of PFA can be achieved through actioning the below elements.

Elements of PFA

The QPS has adopted the elements of Look, Listen, Act and Link as the model to assist in the provision of PFA.

To access valuable resources to support the provision of PFA please head to the PFA Toolkit page.

Alternatively select the other light blue button resource links.