Bearing Bad Tidings: Delivering a Difficult Message

Dennis Potter, LMSW, CAADC, CCS, FAAETS

Dennis Potter serves as Manager, Consultant Relations and Training for Crisis Care Network. He is a licensed social worker and certified addiction counselor. Dennis has received training and supervision in Cognitive Therapy from the Beck Institute in Philadelphia, PA. He has participated in a train the trainer courses in Motivational Interviewing and has provided this training to a variety of mental health, substance abuse agencies and in the business community. Dennis helped to form one of the first community based Crisis Response Teams in the country. He was one of the founding members of the Mid-West Michigan CISM Team and the Michigan Crisis Response Association. Dennis is recognized as a Fellow, by the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. To achieve this credential, he completed a comprehensive application and examination, along with supporting documentation, to validate his experience in working with survivors of traumatic events, knowledge of the literature, and level of education. Since 1989, Dennis has helped to train many of the CISM teams in Michigan and in 24 other states. He is frequently called upon for consultation after particularly difficult events. Dennis has conducted or consulted on all manner of traumatic events for communities, businesses, schools, police, fire and emergency services personnel, the U S Post Office, and community mental health agencies. He has presented at many local, state, regional, national and international conferences. Dennis has provided training in both Latvia and Denmark. He has presented at the last 10 International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF) World Congresses and was awarded the ICISF Excellence in Training and Educations Award at the ICISF 2011 World Congress.