Psychological
First Aid: 8 Core Actions

Practical • Flexible • Adaptable

The Psychological First Aid 8 core actions are the detailed field framework used to support people after crisis, disaster, violence, loss, or overwhelming distress.

They are not rigid steps that must always happen in order. They are flexible actions. Use what is needed, skip what is not needed, and always adapt to the person, the setting, the level of risk, and the support already available.

Core action topics:

The 8 Core Actions of Psychological First Aid

The 8 core actions are a practical framework for helping someone regain safety, calm, connection, and control after a distressing event.

The aim is not to provide therapy, diagnose trauma, force people to talk, or make unrealistic promises. The aim is to offer humane, respectful, practical help in the immediate aftermath of crisis.

The 8 core actions are:

  1. Contact and engagement: approach respectfully and offer help without pressure.
  2. Safety and comfort: reduce immediate danger, provide accurate information, and support physical and emotional comfort.
  3. Stabilization: help someone who is overwhelmed, disoriented, panicking, or unable to function.
  4. Information gathering: identify immediate needs, risks, concerns, losses, and available support.
  5. Practical assistance: help the person take realistic next steps toward solving urgent problems.
  6. Connection with social supports: reconnect people with family, friends, caregivers, community, or other trusted support.
  7. Information on coping: explain common stress reactions and simple ways to cope.
  8. Linkage with collaborative services: connect people with medical, mental health, social, safeguarding, spiritual, or community services when needed.

Use these actions flexibly. Someone may only need contact, comfort, and practical information. Someone else may need stabilization, urgent referral, and direct hand-off to specialist support.

Action 1: Contact and Engagement

Goal: respond to someone who approaches you, or gently approach someone who may need help, in a non-intrusive, compassionate, and useful way.

First contact matters. A calm, respectful approach can help someone feel safer and more willing to receive support. A rushed, forceful, or overly intense approach can increase distress.

How to approach someone

  • Approach calmly and respectfully.
  • Introduce yourself by name and role.
  • Ask permission before starting a conversation.
  • Speak softly and clearly.
  • Give the person your attention.
  • Do not crowd them, stare, touch, or enter personal space unless it is clearly appropriate.
  • Respect cultural, religious, gender, age, and family norms.
  • If they decline help, respect that and tell them where support can be found later.

What to say first

Use simple language. For example:

  • “Hi, my name is ____. I’m here to check whether people need help. Is it okay if I speak with you for a minute?”
  • “Before we talk, is there anything urgent you need right now, like water, medical help, a phone, or somewhere quieter?”
  • “You do not have to talk about what happened. I’m just here to see what would help right now.”

When supporting children

  • Speak to the parent, caregiver, or responsible adult first whenever possible.
  • Get down to the child’s eye level if appropriate.
  • Use the child’s name if known.
  • Use simple, gentle language.
  • If a child is alone, find a parent, caregiver, teacher, official, or safeguarding lead as soon as possible.

Protect privacy

  • Do not discuss someone’s situation where unnecessary people can hear.
  • Do not ask for details unless they are needed to help.
  • Do not share names, stories, or personal details casually.
  • If there is risk of harm, abuse, neglect, or safeguarding concern, involve the appropriate professional or authority.

Action 2: Safety and Comfort

Goal: improve immediate and ongoing safety, while providing physical and emotional comfort.

People recover better when they feel safer, more informed, less exposed, and less alone. Safety and comfort are not just emotional ideas. They include practical things: warmth, water, lighting, medication, privacy, supervision, accurate information, and protection from further harm.

Improve immediate physical safety

  • Check whether the person is still in danger.
  • Move them away from traffic, violence, fire, unstable structures, crowds, weapons, or other risks if safe to do so.
  • Remove simple hazards where possible, such as broken glass, sharp objects, spilled liquids, or trip hazards.
  • Make sure children are supervised in a safe area.
  • Seek help from emergency services, security, medical staff, school staff, workplace leads, or local authorities when the risk is beyond your control.

Watch for urgent safety risks

  • Serious injury or medical need.
  • Signs of shock, such as pale or clammy skin, dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, irregular breathing, or unresponsiveness.
  • Threat of harm to self or others.
  • Extreme agitation, rage, or loss of control.
  • Need for urgent medication.
  • Risk to children, older adults, disabled people, or people being targeted.

If someone may hurt themselves or someone else, or appears medically unsafe, get emergency or professional help immediately. Stay with them if it is safe until help takes over.

Give accurate information

  • Explain what is happening now.
  • Explain what is likely to happen next.
  • Explain what help is available.
  • Use clear, short, non-technical language.
  • Ask what the person is most worried about.
  • If you do not know something, say so. Do not guess.
  • Do not promise safety, services, supplies, reunions, or outcomes unless you know they are true.

Support physical comfort

  • Help the person access water, food, warmth, shade, clothing, blankets, seating, toilets, medication, mobility aids, hearing aids, glasses, or a quieter space.
  • Encourage the person to participate where possible, so they regain some control.
  • For older adults or disabled people, check mobility, sensory needs, medications, service animals, daily care needs, and access to toilets or food areas.

Reduce exposure to distressing reminders

  • Move people away from frightening sights, sounds, smells, crowds, or media attention where possible.
  • Protect privacy from onlookers, cameras, reporters, or unnecessary questioning.
  • Encourage breaks from distressing news or social media coverage.
  • Help parents limit children’s exposure to graphic details or repeated media coverage.

If someone is missing, injured, or has died

  • Listen without forcing details.
  • Help the person access official updates or reunification systems.
  • Do not make promises about whether someone is safe, alive, found, or coming back.
  • Help them identify who they need to contact and what information officials may need.
  • For children, use simple honest language and keep them close to trusted adults where possible.

Action 3: Stabilization

Goal: calm and orient someone who is emotionally overwhelmed, disoriented, panicking, or unable to function.

Not everyone needs stabilization. Strong crying, numbness, fear, anger, confusion, or silence can be normal after a crisis. Stabilization is needed when distress is so intense that the person cannot think, communicate, make decisions, stay safe, or care for themselves or others.

Signs someone may need stabilization

  • Glassy-eyed, vacant, or unable to focus.
  • Not responding to questions or simple instructions.
  • Disoriented or behaving in a confused, aimless way.
  • Uncontrollable crying, shaking, trembling, hyperventilating, rocking, or panic.
  • Feeling trapped, frozen, or unable to act.
  • Frantic searching behaviour.
  • Flashbacks or feeling as if the event is happening again.
  • Risky or impulsive behaviour.

How to stabilize someone

  • Stay calm, quiet, and present.
  • Do not crowd them with too many words.
  • Give them a few moments if they need space and are safe.
  • Speak slowly and simply.
  • Help them focus on one manageable thing at a time.
  • Orient them to where they are, who is with them, and what is happening next.
  • If family or trusted people are nearby, involve them if appropriate.
  • For children, support the caregiver’s role instead of taking over unless the caregiver is unavailable or unable to help.

Grounding technique

If someone is overwhelmed by panic, fear, flashbacks, or racing thoughts, help them reconnect with the present environment.

  • Ask them to sit or stand in a stable position if possible.
  • Ask them to breathe in and out slowly.
  • Ask them to name five non-distressing things they can see.
  • Ask them to name five non-distressing sounds they can hear.
  • Ask them to name five non-distressing things they can feel.
  • Pause for slow breathing between each step.
  • For children, ask them to name colours or safe objects around them.

When stabilization is not enough

  • If the person remains extremely agitated, panicked, psychotic, unsafe, or unable to function, involve medical or mental health professionals.
  • If they may harm themselves or someone else, get urgent help immediately.
  • Medication is not a routine PFA tool and should only be handled by qualified professionals.

Action 4: Information Gathering

Goal: identify immediate needs, current concerns, risks, and priorities so support can be tailored to the person.

Information gathering in Psychological First Aid is not a formal assessment, interrogation, or trauma interview. Ask only what you need to understand what help is most useful now.

Core rule

Do not pressure people to describe traumatic details. Follow their lead. If someone wants to tell the whole story but urgent needs still need attention, gently bring the focus back to immediate support.

Ask about immediate needs

  • “Is there anything urgent you need right now?”
  • “Do you need medical help?”
  • “Do you need water, food, warmth, medication, a phone, transport, or somewhere safer?”
  • “Is anyone depending on you right now, such as a child, older adult, patient, or pet?”

Ask about safety and current concerns

  • “Are you worried about your safety right now?”
  • “Do you know what is happening next?”
  • “Is there information you need to understand what happened or what to do now?”
  • “Are you worried about anyone close to you?”
  • “Do you know where your family or important people are?”

Ask about health, medication, and support needs

  • “Do you have any medical or mental health condition that needs attention?”
  • “Do you need medication you do not currently have?”
  • “Can you contact your doctor, caregiver, or support worker?”
  • “Do you need glasses, hearing aids, mobility aids, oxygen, or other essential items?”

Ask about losses and practical disruption

  • “Was your home, school, workplace, neighbourhood, or business affected?”
  • “Did you lose important property, documents, money, medication, or a pet?”
  • “Is there anything important coming up that has been disrupted?”

Listen for guilt, shame, or self-blame

  • Do not argue with the person’s feelings.
  • Reflect gently: “It sounds like you are being very hard on yourself.”
  • Do not say “It was not your fault” unless you know enough to say that responsibly.
  • Offer emotional comfort and coping information.

Ask directly about serious risk when needed

If the person seems overwhelmed, hopeless, extremely agitated, intoxicated, unsafe, or talks about not wanting to live, ask clearly and calmly:

  • “Have you had thoughts about harming yourself?”
  • “Have you had thoughts about harming someone else?”

If yes, do not leave them alone if there is immediate risk. Get emergency, medical, mental health, safeguarding, or security help immediately.

Prioritise concerns

If the person has several concerns, summarise them and help choose the first realistic step.

  • “You’re worried about your daughter, your medication, and where you’ll stay tonight. Let’s start with the most urgent one.”
  • “Which of these needs to be handled first?”

Action 5: Practical Assistance

Goal: help the person address immediate needs and concerns through practical, achievable steps.

Crisis can make problem-solving harder. Practical assistance helps restore control, dignity, hope, and momentum. The task is not to solve the person’s whole life. The task is to help them take the next useful step.

The four practical assistance steps

  1. Identify the most immediate need. Choose one problem to focus on first.
  2. Clarify the need. Make the problem specific enough to act on.
  3. Discuss an action plan. Identify realistic options, available resources, and what can happen next.
  4. Act to address the need. Help the person make the call, complete the form, find the person, access the service, or take the first step.

Examples of practical help

  • Finding food, water, clothing, shelter, transport, toilets, or a safer place.
  • Helping someone call family, friends, caregivers, school, work, or emergency contacts.
  • Helping someone access medical care, medication, mobility aids, or mental health support.
  • Helping complete forms, reports, insurance documents, or missing-person information.
  • Helping arrange care for children, older adults, disabled people, or pets.
  • Helping someone understand where to go next and who can help.

Keep the plan realistic

  • Focus on what can actually be done now.
  • Do not promise resources that may not exist.
  • Break large problems into smaller steps.
  • Help the person use their own strengths and existing supports.
  • For children and adolescents, involve parents, caregivers, teachers, or responsible adults wherever possible.

Action 6: Connection with Social Supports

Goal: help people connect with family, friends, caregivers, community members, and other sources of support.

Social support is one of the most important parts of recovery. People may need emotional support, practical help, reliable information, reassurance, advice, physical assistance, material support, or simply someone safe nearby.

Types of support people may need

  • Emotional support: listening, warmth, acceptance, reassurance, comfort.
  • Social connection: being near familiar or safe people.
  • Reliable support: knowing who will be there if needed.
  • Advice and information: understanding what is normal and what to do next.
  • Physical assistance: help carrying items, moving safely, filling forms, or completing tasks.
  • Material assistance: food, water, clothing, medicine, money, transport, shelter, or supplies.

Reconnect people with primary supports

  • Help them contact family, partners, children, parents, friends, neighbours, caregivers, faith leaders, school staff, workplace contacts, or community groups.
  • Use phone, text, email, messaging apps, official registries, reunification systems, or in-person contact where available.
  • If someone is isolated, connect them with safe immediate support, such as relief workers, neighbours, teachers, community volunteers, or other appropriate people nearby.

If someone is reluctant to seek support

People may avoid support because they feel embarrassed, weak, guilty, burdensome, afraid of breaking down, unsure what they need, or convinced nobody will understand.

  • Normalise needing help after crisis.
  • Help them identify what type of support would be useful.
  • Help them choose one safe person to contact.
  • Suggest a simple phrase they can use, such as: “I don’t need to explain everything, but I don’t want to be alone right now.”
  • Remind them they do not have to tell the full story to receive support.

Help people support others safely

  • Encourage practical help, not forced emotional processing.
  • Suggest simple support: sitting together, helping with children, sharing information, walking someone to a service, making tea, helping with paperwork.
  • For children, use safe group activities such as drawing, games, reading, building, colouring, or simple play.
  • Keep children near trusted adults and avoid disaster-focused play or graphic discussion.

Action 7: Information on Coping

Goal: provide simple information about stress reactions and coping so people understand what is happening to them and can function better.

After crisis, people may feel frightened by their own reactions. Explain that strong reactions can be common after overwhelming events, without labelling them as symptoms, disorders, weakness, or permanent damage.

Common stress reactions

  • Intrusive memories, images, dreams, or feeling as if the event is happening again.
  • Avoiding reminders, conversations, places, people, thoughts, or feelings linked to what happened.
  • Numbness, detachment, withdrawal, or loss of interest.
  • Feeling constantly alert, jumpy, irritable, angry, unable to sleep, or unable to concentrate.
  • Physical reactions such as headaches, stomach aches, dizziness, tight chest, rapid heartbeat, nausea, appetite changes, or bowel problems.
  • Grief, sadness, longing, guilt, regret, anger, loneliness, hopelessness, or missing someone who died or is absent.

Explain reminders

  • Trauma reminders: sights, sounds, smells, places, people, weather, noises, or feelings that bring the event back.
  • Loss reminders: photos, belongings, routines, places, dates, or moments that highlight who or what is gone.
  • Change reminders: new housing, changed routines, school disruption, work disruption, financial strain, or daily inconveniences that show life is different.
  • Hardships: lack of money, food, water, transport, documents, privacy, sleep, childcare, medical care, or normal activities.

Helpful coping actions

  • Talk to someone trusted.
  • Get accurate information.
  • Rest when possible.
  • Eat, hydrate, and move gently.
  • Return to simple routines where possible.
  • Take breaks from news and distressing content.
  • Spend time with supportive people.
  • Use breathing, grounding, prayer, meditation, journaling, or relaxation if helpful.
  • Do small practical tasks that restore control.
  • Use coping methods that have helped before.
  • Seek counselling or professional support when reactions continue to interfere with life.

Unhelpful coping actions

  • Using alcohol or drugs to cope.
  • Withdrawing completely from people or activities.
  • Working constantly to avoid feeling anything.
  • Blaming yourself or others excessively.
  • Getting violently angry.
  • Overeating, undereating, or neglecting sleep and health.
  • Watching distressing media repeatedly.
  • Doing risky or dangerous things.

Simple breathing exercise

Use this only if the person is calm enough to follow instructions.

  • Ask them to place one hand on their stomach if comfortable.
  • Ask them to breathe in slowly through the nose for three counts.
  • Ask them to breathe out slowly through the mouth for three counts.
  • Repeat five times.
  • For children, describe it as slowly filling and emptying a balloon.

Coping for families

  • Encourage simple routines: meals, bedtime, waking, play, schoolwork, prayer, or shared time.
  • Remind family members that people may react differently to the same event.
  • Encourage patience, not comparison.
  • Help parents understand that children may show distress through behaviour, sleep, clinginess, anger, regression, or physical complaints.
  • Encourage families to talk about what support each person needs, without forcing everyone to tell the full story.

Action 8: Linkage with Collaborative Services

Goal: connect people with services they need now or may need later.

Some needs cannot be handled by Psychological First Aid alone. The final core action is making sure people are linked to the right help, not just told that help exists.

When to link someone to additional services

  • Acute medical problem.
  • Acute mental health problem.
  • Threat of harm to self or others.
  • Worsening medical, emotional, behavioural, or mental health condition.
  • Need for medication.
  • Alcohol or drug withdrawal, relapse, or serious substance-use concern.
  • Domestic abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, exploitation, or safeguarding concern.
  • Significant developmental concerns about a child or adolescent.
  • Ongoing coping difficulties several weeks after the event.
  • Need for housing, food, transport, welfare, legal, financial, school, workplace, spiritual, or community support.
  • The person asks for referral.

How to make a useful referral

  • Summarise the person’s needs and check you understood correctly.
  • Explain what the service is and how it may help.
  • Explain what will happen next if they accept the referral.
  • Ask how they feel about the referral.
  • Give written details where possible.
  • Make the appointment, call, introduction, or hand-off directly where possible.
  • Do not refer to unknown or untrusted providers.

Children and adolescents

  • Children and adolescents usually need parent or caregiver consent for non-emergency services.
  • Involve a responsible adult in the referral process wherever possible.
  • Keep interactions supportive so the young person is less afraid of future care.
  • Reduce the need for the child to retell traumatic details repeatedly by summarising essential information for the receiving professional where appropriate and confidentially safe.

Older adults and disabled people

  • Check whether they need primary care, medication, transport, mobility support, meals, housing, daily care, disability services, senior services, or social support.
  • Make sure they understand the referral and can physically access it.
  • Where appropriate, involve trusted relatives, caregivers, advocates, or community support.

Continuity matters

  • If you cannot continue helping, explain what happens next.
  • Introduce the person to the next helper where possible.
  • Share only essential information with the next provider.
  • Avoid making the person repeat their story unnecessarily.
  • Do not leave the person feeling abandoned after they have accepted help.

Quick Checklist

Use this checklist as a fast reminder in real situations.

Contact and engagement

  • Introduce yourself.
  • Ask permission to help.
  • Respect personal space, culture, privacy, and choice.
  • Do not force conversation.

Safety and comfort

  • Check immediate danger.
  • Handle urgent medical or safety needs first.
  • Give accurate information.
  • Improve warmth, water, food, shelter, privacy, and comfort where possible.
  • Reduce exposure to distressing reminders.

Stabilization

  • Use only if the person is overwhelmed, disoriented, panicking, or unable to function.
  • Stay calm and present.
  • Use simple orientation and grounding.
  • Get urgent professional help if risk remains high.

Information gathering

  • Ask only what is needed.
  • Do not pressure trauma details.
  • Identify urgent needs, risks, losses, medication, loved ones, and support.
  • Ask directly about self-harm or harm to others when needed.

Practical assistance

  • Choose one immediate need.
  • Clarify the problem.
  • Make a realistic plan.
  • Help the person take the first step.

Social supports

  • Reconnect the person with trusted people.
  • Help them ask for support simply.
  • Encourage practical help and safe connection.

Coping information

  • Explain common stress reactions without pathologising.
  • Recommend helpful coping actions.
  • Warn against harmful coping patterns.
  • Encourage routines, rest, connection, and small actions.

Linkage with services

  • Refer when needs are beyond PFA.
  • Make direct links, not vague suggestions.
  • Use warm hand-offs where possible.
  • Maintain continuity and dignity.

Summary

The 8 core actions of Psychological First Aid give a detailed framework for helping someone after crisis: make respectful contact, improve safety and comfort, stabilize if needed, understand immediate concerns, offer practical help, reconnect social support, explain coping, and link people with services.

The framework is flexible. The person may need one action, several actions, or urgent professional help. The core rule is simple: protect safety, preserve dignity, avoid pressure, give accurate information, support calm, and help the person take the next realistic step.

The 3 Steps

The 3 steps of psychological first aid (Look, Listen, and Link) are a short, easy-to-remember model used in many training programs and in the field, alongside the 8 core actions and the 5 principles.

  1. Look
  2. Listen
  3. Link

Learn more about the 3 steps of psychological first aid.

For structured learning, see psychological first aid training and PFA resources and PDF manuals, and practical PFA examples.