“I am one of the staff that attended the Aegis training and found it very useful and easier to remember than ___. I have worked in multiple facilities under different systems and found this to be the most user friendly. I found the (benevolent) restraints that were part of their system to be much easier to use, less likely to cause injury, and more secure. The de-escalation section of the course was much more thorough than ___ and really emphasized prevention.”

                                Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council Delegate

“In addition to working as a certified Aegis instructor, my primary role is to be the Program Director of Caribou Ridge Intervention, which is a wilderness therapy/residential hybrid program.  Caribou Ridge is part of Idaho Educational Services, which also includes two therapeutic boarding schools called Northwest Academy and Boulder Creek Academy.  All three programs previously used _ _ _ as our crisis management and de-escalation system, and all three programs have been using Aegis now for just under two years. 

In my professional experience I have been trained in, and have used  several models in a variety of settings………and now Aegis.

Both as an individual working in these settings, and as a trainer and administrator, I can say that Aegis is the best crisis management system I have come across.  Based on information from questionnaires and from individual staff feedback, our staff have spoken highly of the change from _ _ _ to Aegis.  

This positive feedback is two fold:

1) Compared to _ _ _, the non-physical skills are evidence based and clinically sophisticated.  This information not only focuses on preventing escalation, and early intervention in escalated situations, but focuses on skills for staff to build rapport and empower themselves to prevent escalation from occurring.  Staff have left trainings feeling like they should have had this information at the beginning of their careers.  Generally, staff feel empowered after learning the Aegis system, and feel like they can apply the information to their jobs immediately.  Front line staff seem to especially appreciate the tools for rapport building and non-verbal acuity, while clinicians have made statements that they intend to use aspects of Aegis as group topics to deliver psycho-educational tools.

2) Staff feel like the physical holds taught within the Aegis system are easier to understand, retain, and apply.  Although we do not often get in many physical interventions at our schools, staff feel like they are able to recall physical skills in moments of crisis, and especially compared to _ _ _, feel like this is a safer and more effective hold.  As a large man trained in _ _ _, I agree with this completely.  Any time I was in a hold during a CPI training, and staff became unbalanced, I almost always went down on my face.  This has yet to occur during any Aegis training I have been a part of. 

At this point there has been no negative staff feedback about the Aegis System from questionnaires or individual testimonials.  Our major hurdle as a company was to adjust from a one-day _ _ _ training to a two-day Aegis training model.  Although it involved more cost to make the initial transition, we found the more sophisticated system to be worth the cost of requiring staff to be in training for an additional day.  This cost can be lowered in the recertification process as Matt and the Aegis team helped us brainstorm how we can incorporate aspects of the system into in service workshops throughout the year.”

 

Dusty Cash, MS

Program Director

Caribou Ridge Intervention