Emotional First Aid is a set of life skills used by lay citizens and emergency responders to provide the support a person who is emotionally shocked needs immediately following a crisis event.

The key words and concepts in this definition are:

Life Skills: You will be able to use these skills in all aspects of your life when tragedy occurs.

Lay Citizens: You don’t have to be a professional mental health worker to provide Emotional First Aid.

Emotionally Shocked: EFA does not fix broken bones, but broken hearts.

Immediately: The sooner you can help the survivor following the tragedy, the more impact you will make.

Uncommon Sense: This concept is not contained in the definition but it’s a very important one. EFA goes against your “helping instincts” and what you would think should be done to help someone in crisis. Emotionally traumatized people need to be dealt with in a totally different way than you deal with people in your everyday life.