The eSCAPe Protocol is a set of interventions which frontline workers can use with people who are anxious, unreasonable, irrational, contemptuous or enraged.
This experiential course offers theoretical knowledge and a chance to practice the skills urgently needed by frontline workers and their supervisors. The course responds to the broader societal need to turn down the interpersonal volatility and intensity fueled by our current national divisions.
The goal is to enable a positive, problem solving interaction between an agitated person and a frontline worker who wants to be helpful. To achieve this goal, frontline workers must create a sense of safety. They should do so so by using the four interventions of the eSCAPe protocol.
The course is taught in four separate modules:
- Brain basics
- The four interventions that can calm people down.
- Remembering the four interventions
- Practice by watching and doing.
Brain Basics
Participants will get a quick overview of what our brains do when danger threatens. They will learn that when our brains think something dangerous is about to happen, our ability to think, reason and communicate go off line. Instead, we are dominated by the impulse to fight, run away or freeze.
Four Interventions
The eSCAPe Protocol prescribes how to respond to someone operating as if they are in danger. It distills these interactions into four simple interpersonal interactions.
- Social Connection: Let the agitated person know they are understood and that someone wants to help.
- Choice and Control: Give the agitated person some experience of personal agency: Something simple is fine. We can offer the opportunity to talk now or later, have a drink of water or a cup of coffee.
- Anticipation: Let the person know what is going to happen next. “When you go to the motor vehicles office, it’s going to be crowded.”
- Planning: As the person calms down, the parts of the brain that can look ahead and decide what to do next can come back on line. The frontline worker can say, “Let’s make a list of the documents you need to take with you to the social security office.”
Remembering the four interventions
eSCAPe’s interventions are simple, the challenge for frontline workers is remembering to use them while they carry out their essential employment tasks. Not so easy!
The eSCAPe Protocol uses a time-honored method popular in the medical field. They will learn a mnemonic, eSCAPe, which stands for “Escape Psychological Trauma.” The four interventions, Social Connection, Choice and Control, Anticipation and Planning, are represented by the letters middle four letters of eSCAPe.
Practice by watching and doing
We wish learning eSCAPe were as simple as reading a book or memorizing the mnemonic. It’s not, because using eSCAPe requires integrating its use with whatever tasks the frontline worker is expected to carry out at the same time. We learned from EMT and paramedic trainees, that having memorized, the mnemonic, participants can consolidate their learning with demonstration and role play practice. This experiential feature of learning the protocol is crucial. A video of a typical eSCAPe intervention helps make the cognitive concepts come alive. In role play, using previously written scripts or personnel experiences, every participant takes turns being the frontline worker or the agitated person.
An essential part of eSCAPe training is the opporunity to learn how to modulate one’s own reactivity to agitated people, especially people who are angry. Participates in role play will discover how using the eSCAPe protocol itself decreases reactivity. Self regulation and breathing techniques will also be introduced.
eSCAPe Protocol Learning Objectives
- 1
Understand how the perception of danger can impact interpersonal communication and social connection.
- 2
Remember the four interventions that comprise the eSCAPe Protocol.
- 3
Practice eSCAPe interventions using role play
- 4
Develop the confidence to start using the eSCAPe Protocol.
- 5
Enhance the self-awareness and self-regulation required to manage challenging interactions with difficult people.
