Human Empowerment and Leadership Principles (HELP) is a product and service of Crisis Assessment & Prevention Systems (CAPS). In 1996, Crisis Assessment & Prevention Systems was founded for the primary purpose of providing onsite training services to facilities serving aggressive and self abusive individuals. In the beginning CAPS used a program developed by the Texas Department of Mental Health. Transforming from its original roots as an offspring from the Texas based program PMAB, HELP has been refined to better address a broader population of care providers. The development of HELP was started in the spring of 2001 and soon piloted in the state of Georgia in order to test the program on a more diverse population of facilities providing care to aggressive and self-abusive individuals.
The CAPS advisory team developed HELP into a program that would continue to provide some of the risk management strategies contained in PMAB, but would update and refine some of the techniques to provide safer, more effective interventions. HELP utilizes interventions and strategies used by residential care professionals, medical professionals and educators to provide realistic and practical interventions for physically managing learners. Help is a program that emphasizes clear, concise, respectful communication techniques for residents, patients and students who become agitated during challenging situations.
Most importantly, HELP expands the idea of crisis intervention with a specific focus on maintaining a physically and emotionally safe environment. HELP does not overwhelm participants with information not pertaining to safety management. HELP is focused, simple, clear and concise with objectives for managing challenging situations which may lead to physical aggression. HELP is non-blaming of staff and learners and therefore provides ways to break down some of the barriers to preventing and managing physical aggression.
Today HELP has been refined and expanded to serve a diverse population of caretakers, educators and healthcare providers. We are proud to announce the tenth anniversary of Human Empowerment and Leadership Principles without one incident reported about harm to providers of HELP or recipients under the care of organizations that properly use HELP. We look forward to continued service and commitment to providing the best possible Safety Management™ training available.
