De-escalation

De-escalation

Alberta Health Services (2018), provides a list of 10 de-escalation methods to aid escalated situations:

1. Respect personal space – Respect the clients served and your own space
2. Do not be provocative – Avoid escalation by making sure your body language matches what you are saying
3. Establish verbal contact – Only one person should verbally interact with the client served. Introduce yourself, provide orientation and reassurance
4. Be concise – Use simple vocabulary and repeat your message to the client until it is heard
5. Identify wants and feelings – Pay attention to both what the client is saying and their body language
6. Listen closely to what the client is saying – Use active listening
7. Agree or agree to disagree – Find something about the client’s position that you can agree with
8. Set clear limits – Establish limits in a reasonable and respectful manner
9. Offer choices and optimism – Choice is a source of empowerment for a client who feels physical violence is a necessary response
10. Debrief the client, supervisor and staff – Helps to restore the therapeutic relationship and alleviate the traumatic nature of the intervention

De-escalation for Children

1. Validate their emotions – Try to remain calm and try to understand their feelings on why they are escalated. No not to invalidate their reasons on why they escalated , rather show them their emotions are important.
2. Gradually make yourself smaller – *Once the child understands that you understand and care about their emotions, start to relax your body so the child can mirror your behavior. Continue to validate their emotions and repeat what they are saying to let the child understand.
3. Start a calm conversation – Once the child has calmed down, you can have a conversation with them to talk them through the problem at hand. This way they are able to understand what happened to cause them to escalate and what they can do next time to better express themselves.

(Child Savers, 2020)