Curriculum Content Details
Below, you can review a summary of each course included in The Crisis Professional Curriculum, along with expected course duration and continued education (CE) credits awarded.
American Psychological Association Continued Education (APA CE) credits are awarded for completion of individual courses within the curriculum.
Crisis Professional Curriculum (CPC) Introduction
This course is a brief introduction to the Crisis Professional Curriculum. After completing this course, learners will be prepared to take the subsequent courses and understand the user interface.
Evidence Based and Promising Practices in Crisis Intervention
This course covers evidence-based practices (EBP) and why they are so important in the crisis system. Learners will receive an overview of the evidence-based practices applicable to the Colorado crisis system and understand their role in continuing to learn and grow in the effective application of EBPs to help others stay safe and thrive.
Initial Telephonic Screening and Standardized Dispatch Protocol
This course describes the crisis call management process and how this flows through assessment, support, securing safety, referral, and follow-up services.
Suicide Screening, Risk Assessment, and Safety Planning
This course covers foundational information about suicide, the difference between screening and assessment, and use of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Participants will define and explore risk factors, protective factors, and behavioral indicators in decision-making. Finally, participants will learn to use the Stanley Brown safety planning tool.
Trauma Informed Care
This course covers the impact of trauma and the relationships between trauma, despair, crisis, and behavioral health disorders. Learners will be able to respond using the principles of trauma-informed care and the integrative trauma and healing framework. Additionally, learners will understand secondary traumatic stress and other forms of work-related stress, and they will learn strategies to build their own resilience.
Non-Violent Crisis Intervention
This course covers the window of tolerance, the continuum of arousal, and related adaptive responses. Learners will be able to use the “4 R” strategies to help people in crisis regulate, including the integration of the SEAR strategies in the prevention, intervention, and resolution timeline. They will develop self-awareness of their nonverbal, paraverbal, and verbal communication, and learn how to better understand other people’s states based on their communication.
Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness
This course covers a variety of topics related to cultural awareness and responsiveness.
Participants learn to maintain awareness of their own beliefs, worldviews, and biases and respond to clients with cultural humility. Learners will understand how historical trauma continues to have an impact on People of Color today, and how modern systems of oppression create health and mental health inequities through social structures.
Crisis Plan Development and Use of Psychiatric Advanced Directives
This course covers how to develop crisis prevention plans, including strategies for understanding the possible causes of the crisis and addressing prevention, early intervention, crisis response, and restoration. Learners will also understand Colorado’s law on psychiatric advance directives (PADs) and how to use PADs in crisis situations.
Crisis Response for Individuals with Behavioral Health Conditions and Serious Mental Illness (SMI)
This course provides an overview of mental health conditions and serious mental illness as it relates to crisis situations. Participants will learn categories of mental health diagnoses and their common symptoms, as well as the concept of serious mental illness (SMI) and related terms. They will understand common life experiences that precede SMI and follow the development of SMI, and they will be able to respond to a person with SMI in a crisis, including response for individuals experiencing psychosis.
Gender Responsive Crisis Services
This course covers gender-responsiveness for cisgender individuals, including mental health and crisis risk factors for men and women. Participants will learn to integrate gender responsiveness for cisgender clients and cisgender postpartum families.
Responding to LGBTQIA2S+ Individuals in Crisis
This course covers strategies to support LGBTQIA2S+ individuals in crisis. Learners will understand societal dynamics impacting this population, as well as risk and protective factors for behavioral health disorders and suicide.
The course also covers family-building, pregnancy, and postpartum issues for LGBTQIA2S+ individuals.
Addressing Substance Use Issues in Crisis Services
This course covers how to recognize substance use, the impact of substance use disorders, how substance use may mask other needs, and how to refer to the appropriate treatment.
Supporting Individuals with Co-Occurring Disorders in Crisis
This course covers supporting individuals with substance use and mental health disorders in crisis. Participants will learn to recognize signs of co-occurring disorders, conduct screening, and make appropriate referrals for assessment and follow-up.
Harm Reduction Strategies and Use of Naloxone and Other Supplies to Address Overdoses
This course covers the key role of harm reduction in the continuum of substance use treatment and saving lives. In addition, learners will receive an overview of harm reduction principles and practices, focusing on naloxone.
Crisis Support for Individuals on Psychotropic Medications
This course covers the five major categories of psychotropic medications and the symptoms they treat. Learners will recognize their side effects, as well as symptoms associated with coming off the medications and risks for abuse. They will also understand issues around psychotropic medication prescribing for children and youth.
Introduction to Supporting Children, Youth, and Families in Crisis
This course is a brief introduction to 5 self-paced courses that provide more detail about supporting children, youth, and families in crisis. After completing this introduction, learners will have a general framework for approaching the 5 subsequent courses, including cultural responsiveness for families, understanding generational differences, and recognizing risk and protective factors.
Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families in Crisis: Consent Laws and Boundaries
This course is a brief introduction to 5 self-paced courses that provide more detail about supporting children, youth, and families in crisis. After completing this introduction, learners will have a general framework for approaching the 5 subsequent courses, including cultural responsiveness for families, understanding generational differences, and recognizing risk and protective factors.
Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families in Crisis: De-escalation and Stabilization
In this course, we'll explore de-escalation and stabilization for crisis intervention in children and youth, addressing underlying issues, and the importance of compassion.
Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families in Crisis: Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities
This course provides knowledge and strategies for working with individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) in crisis situations.
Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families in Crisis: Screening and Assessment
This course will outline the fundamentals of a responsive crisis screening and assessment process for children and youth. It will include tips for in-person and remote applications, what assessment should consist of, and considerations based on the child or youth’s development. We will explore risk assessment and how the assessment process for children differs from that of adults, as well as assessing a family unit. Finally, this course suggests strategies for engaging with a family system and caregivers to conduct a comprehensive assessment.
Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families in Crisis: Safety Planning and Bridging
In this course, we will explore the fundamentals of responsive safety planning for young people and how to involve a family appropriately. We will examine strategies for managing high-risk behaviors, including substance use, self-harm, and suicidality, as they present in young people. This course will also cover critical elements of safety planning and problems and pitfalls to avoid when developing a safety plan with youth. Lastly, we will discuss bridging supports and services and how thorough asset mapping of available services can help identify supports that help meet the needs of your client and their family.
Cultural Responsiveness for American Indians and Alaska Natives in Crisis
This course covers cultural responsiveness and structural competency for the American Indian/Alaska Native population. After completing this course, learners will have an understanding of the social structures that impact this population. They will gain the knowledge needed to respond in a way that is attuned to historical trauma and unresolved grief and that addresses problems created by social structures.
Crisis Response for Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities
This course covers strategies to support individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in crisis. Learners become aware of strategies to use during crisis care, as well as resources for follow-up care, focusing on adults with IDD.
Crisis Response for Neurodivergent Individuals and People on the Autism Spectrum
This course covers foundational information about neurodivergence and autism spectrum disorder, as well as strategies to respond to these populations. Learners will be able to adapt crisis response and follow-up care for neurodivergent individuals and those on the autism spectrum.
Supporting Indivduals with Traumatic Brain Injuries in Crisis
This course provides information, resources, and guidance to understand and effectively support individuals with challenges due to brain injury.
Supporting Individuals with Dementia in Crisis
This course will help participants learn to identify behaviors commonly associated with dementia. Learners will review strategies of what to do and what to avoid when supporting people with dementia in crisis.
Supporting Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Deafblind Individuals in Crisis
This course will help participants learn to understand and respond effectively to Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Deafblind (DHHDB) populations in crisis, including adapting crisis response and follow-up care.
Managing Privacy and Confidentiality During a Crisis
This course covers HIPAA, Tarasoff, and the requirements surrounding protecting clients’ privacy and personal health information during a crisis.
National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services
This course informs learners of their responsibility to adhere to the national CLAS standards for crisis services. Learners will understand the concepts of health equity and health inequities, and how to respond to clients in a way that promotes equity.
Integrating Peer Professionals in Colorado's Crisis System Workforce
This course covers the value of lived-experience peers in the crisis workforce, reviewing key concepts, including professional ethics and boundaries and trauma-informed supervision needs for staff with lived experience.
Ethical Considerations in Crisis Intervention
This course covers the value of lived-experience peers in the crisis workforce, reviewing key concepts, including professional ethics and boundaries and trauma-informed supervision needs for staff with lived experience.
The Colorado Crisis Assessment
In The Colorado Crisis Assessment course, participants acquire essential skills and knowledge to effectively utilize the Colorado Crisis Assessment tool with individuals presenting various and complex needs in crisis situations.