The Jewish Community Incident Response Team (JCIRT) is available to local organizations and schools that have been impacted by a crisis or major occurrence. Trained team members can meet with small groups or individuals of all ages to help reduce the initial emotional distress caused by a traumatic event and foster short- and long-term adaptive functioning and coping. 

Examples of incidents to which team members have responded include:

• sudden death or critical injury of a member or staff at an organization or congregation
• tragic events at local schools and camps
• bomb threats
• threats or acts of violence

Shortly after an incident occurs, team members can be dispatched to begin providing critical incident stress management and Psychological First Aid to groups of individuals who may have been traumatized. Team members are not first responders; their purpose is to allow people to process what occurred, educate them about the range of possible stress reactions, share positive coping strategies, and provide information and referral to additional community resources, as needed.

Made up of Jewish communal professionals from throughout our community, the Team will focus on the greater Baltimore Jewish community but may also serve others in the broader community as well.

The Jewish Community Incident Response Team, coordinated by Jewish Community Services, is a service of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore.