NCJ Number
195765
Date Published
2002
Length
35 pages
Annotation
In this chapter, the reader is provided with pertinent background information in theory and practice in the area of crisis intervention and death notification.
Abstract
The delivery of “death news” is typically a task that falls on the shoulders of police officers, police chaplains, medical examiners, doctors, and nurses, as well as others. Regardless of whether the death is expected or very unexpected survivors have been taught through socialization not to be prepared. Death notification is a rare crisis intervention encounter where the responder or intervener delivers a death notice or tells someone of a death. This chapter begins with a presentation on the theoretical foundation necessary to understand a personal crisis and to conduct a professional notification. This includes a theoretical overview of literature significant to crisis intervention, specific death notification literature, and the translating of theory into practice through discussions on crisis intervention phase, models, model strengths, and limitations. The chapter ends with a discussion on the criminal justice aspects of death notification including issues related to death notification for criminal justice practitioners, death notification procedures providing a clear delivery strategy, the roles of both the notifier and receiver, the crisis intervention or notification process, and lastly, summary remarks and simulated exercises. Informing an individual of a loss produces traumatic stress and crisis based on the precipitating event. The death notifier is a necessary support system of stability, order, and structure to the survivor’s now chaotic life. Questions, simulated exercises, Appendices A-B, and references