Keeps it safe

Meeting Distress Without Making It Worse

A CORA decision skill · about a 4-minute read

In a moment that is heating up, almost everything a worker does is either lowering the temperature or raising it. Very little is neutral.

Steady the Moment means

Meet distress or escalation in a way that calms, not inflames.

What it looks like on shift

  • You lower your voice rather than raising it, and give the person more space rather than less.
  • You stop talking. Instructions during distress usually add to the load.
  • You deal with the moment first and the reason for it afterwards.

What it looks like when it slips

  • Trying to reason somebody out of it while they are past the point of being able to take it in.
  • Standing too close, or bringing more people in, because it feels like doing something.
  • Treating the incident as over the second it looks over.

Three things to try on your next shift

  1. Notice your own body first. Your shoulders and your volume arrive before your words do.
  2. Try saying nothing for thirty seconds. It is the hardest and often the most useful thing available.
  3. Afterwards, talk about what went right as well as what did not. Debriefs that only look for faults stop being honest.

The plan, your own safety, and what happens after

If this person has a plan for moments like this, that plan is the answer and it outranks anything on this page. It was written by somebody who knows them, with time to think, which is exactly what you have not got right now. Read it before the shift, not during one.

Calm is the goal, not the rule. If somebody is not safe, and that includes you, then getting distance and getting help is the right call rather than a failure of technique. Nothing here asks you to stay in a room you should not be in.

And when it looks over, it is not finished. Write down what happened and put it through your organisation's incident process. Some incidents have to be reported further than your own service, and you are not expected to know which ones. That is what the process is for, and it only works if the report reaches it.

Before you act: Always follow your own organisation's policy first. For a suspected poisoning or medication error, the Poisons Information Centre is 13 11 26. In an emergency, call 000. If you need to talk to somebody yourself, afterwards or at any time, Lifeline is 13 11 14.

More in Keeps it safe:

  • Escalate WellSpot when it needs to go up (risk, health change, safeguarding) and act, not too early, not too late.
  • Stay in LaneKnow the edge of the role: support, don't diagnose or decide for; recognise what isn't yours to handle.

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