The Family Assistance Education & Research Foundation (FAERF) has been at the forefront of the evolution of emergency management, combining the head-heart approach for a fully integrated response to survivors of traumatic loss. Practicing consciousness in the workplace involves caring for people first, without exception.
Written by: Carolyn V. Coarsey, Ph.D.
May 2025
The second elective in the International-Humanitarian Assistance Response Program (I-HARP)™ will be released in August 2025. Like all of the programs in I-HARP™, the video portion of the program will be presented in a webinar; this month’s Consciousness@work article will highlight teaching points taken from the soft skills section of the program. The program’s overall objective is to provide guidelines for managing care team responders supporting survivors remotely.
Background: Remote Care Team Responses
Due to travel restrictions and social distancing during the pandemic, many survivor assistance assignments were provided remotely, i.e., telephone calls. While occasionally texts and, when possible, Zoom, Teams, or other video-assisted calls can be part of a remote response, by far, the old-fashioned telephone call is still the most frequently used method of communication between care team responders and survivors, when face-to-face support is not possible.
While challenges associated with the Coronavirus are no longer an issue, other problems present challenges for in-person responses. Managing security in war zones and locations of civil unrest are examples where long-distance support is the best a company can offer. A far more common reason for remote support involves natural disasters, where an entire region may be challenged to provide adequate water, food, and safe shelter to residents, much less outsiders who come to assist.
At FAERF, over the years, we have observed how often well-intentioned responders place extra burdens on local officials when they descend upon a community, requiring their basic needs to be met. In addition to natural disasters, highly visible media events often attract curiosity seekers, press members, and others to the location, crowding out residents who need hotel rooms, restaurants, medical care, and other life-sustaining necessities.
For multiple reasons, at FAERF, we encourage our corporate member companies to prepare for managing family assistance responses remotely. Preparation involves training the responders on skills and preferred practices learned from experienced team members. Over four decades of responding to disasters have presented us with a great deal of examples to draw from. Our responses to recent fires in Maui, HI, in 2023, and the California wildfires early this year allowed us to gain more experience and learnings to share.
Listening: #1 Skill Needed in Telephone Response
I’ve done both in-person and remote deployments, so I know the difference. When you’re with people, you can see body language, you can hug them if they need a hug. On the “phone only” deployments, it is very different when you do not have eye contact or non-verbal cues that you have in a face-to-face response. The client may want to talk about things that are not in the script. They just need to vent or share something with you about what is happening in their life in the moment. You take time to listen to them, even though you may have five other calls to make. Just understand that this is what’s happening in their life, and they need you to take time to listen. They are in crisis, and that is how we help them.
-Captain Susan Ryan-Bisig, Retired, UPS Airlines
Whether working face-to-face or remotely, there is no greater skill required than being a good listener. As experienced care team member/leader, Susan, points out in the quote above, we assist survivors with more than their physical needs for food, water, and shelter when we take time to listen to them. Our belief in the necessity that a helper possess good listening skills is supported by past and current research.
A study conducted by two Harvard researchers in 2012 showed that when people share their experiences with a dedicated listener, they experience an increase in dopamine, the hormone released in the brain anytime one is enjoying a good meal, sex, or even when given money. The need for connection follows closely behind the need for physical survival. Listening is a critical way we offer connection.
Presence: The Payoff of Being a Good Listener
If you can make someone feel heard and important, you are on the highway to their heart. And it’s not as difficult or complex as you think.
-Patrick King, How to Listen with Intention, www.PatrickKingConsulting.com (2024)
The power of being a good listener is not a new concept. In Dale Carnegie’s famous book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, he encouraged his followers to get people to talk about themselves as a way of building relationships. He is frequently quoted as saying, “You make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
Arguably, his goal was to help his audiences become successful in sales and marketing, and by encouraging them to become good listeners, he was helping them increase their ability to be present with others. During the chaos that survivors experience during the crisis, having one person stop and direct their total attention to the survivor in that moment is invaluable. Being present is a form of validation that is sorely needed during times when all hope seems lost.
Tone: Helping Survival Feel Safe and Valued by the Sound of our Voice
What helps me the most is to listen, and when I communicate, I use a very soft voice, full of understanding. I let them know remotely that I am here for them. I always use a very apologetic tone because I don’t know and I cannot see the person. I don’t know how they’re taking in the information. I like them to feel we are physically standing next to each other, and they feel that I’m here for them to assist them as long as they need with any kind of question that they may have… that I am attentively listening with patience, providing assistance.
–Ruzica (Rose) Kovacevic-Jeftic, FAERF Care Team Member
Years of listening and supporting survivors have shown the value of speaking from a physical position in our bodies–our hearts. Ancient Hindu and other Eastern philosophies teach that the center of our chest houses our heart chakra, our source of love and compassion. Listening to Rose, I was reminded of the value of dropping our voice into the center of our chest, as a way to soften our tone and convey our empathy for the survivor in that moment.
This type of visualization, similar to Rose’s example of imagining physically standing next to a survivor, has helped many remote responders send positive messages to those they cannot physically touch. Following an airline disaster where over two hundred people died, one telephone responder described picturing herself reaching out across the miles and holding the hand of the young woman she was supporting. The survivor had lost her fiancé in the crash, and much of the needed support involved listening to her sob. The care team member described how the image of reaching out across the phone lines and holding the survivor’s hand helped her remain grounded and calm throughout the response that lasted several weeks.
Paracommunications: Validating with Soft, Affirming, Validating Sounds
To support survivors who are sharing private, painful, and often highly emotional parts of their stories, many have learned to use soft, affirming sounds to let the person know they are tracking emotionally with them. This technique helps validate survivors as we offer more than logistical support. According to Wikipedia, paralanguage or para-communications, also known as vocalics, is a component of meta-communication that may modify meaning, give nuanced meaning, or convey emotion by using techniques such as prosody (rhythmic), pitch, volume, intonation, etc.
Soft sounds, “oh, ah, oh, my, etc,” go a long way in bridging the gaps between words, which even if spoken, often fail to convey what a team member is feeling for the survivor.
Upcoming program
The purpose of true deep listening is to go there with someone and this involves teasing out exactly where you are heading. It’s a job that requires a lot of comprehension, solving subtle mysteries, and clarification. It’s a bit like a therapist’s role of helping unravel emotions and situations.
-Patrick King
While Elective Two – Managing Care Teams Remotely – will include a logistics side with discussion of prepping and working with the head side of a remote response, as the main points presented in this article clearly show, a major focus of the program will cover lessons learned about the heart part of supporting survivors, over the telephone. The course will feature videos of Susan and Rose, whose comments are included here, along with other experienced team members who have much to share about this highly important elective.
To learn more about I-HARP™, please visit FAERF.ORG