Table 8 Description of Distress Brief Intervention materials and tools

∙ DBI Level 1 Referral Form and Service Information Leaflet:

For Level 1 staff standard forms were produced to facilitate the efficient transfer of referral information across different agencies to the DBI Level 2 service.

∙ Standard Operating Procedures for Responding to a Referral: Critical to the referral response was initiating contact with the person within 24 hours. Written Standard Operating Procedures were produced to ensure consistency and reliability of follow-up response initiated by the DBI Level 2 service. These included standard contact and re-contact schedule, with ‘what if’ scenarios.

∙ Distress Management Plan: The Level 2 response is person-centred and with few mandatory components. Notwithstanding this flexibility a key component is the development of a Distress Management Plan (D-MaP), a personal planning resource containing problem solving, coping and solution-focused activities with short and longer-term scope to help the person manage their immediate and future distress. The D-MaP is designed to be used flexibly, allowing for person-centred support and a wide range of experiences and presentation types. The D-MaP represents the practical application of several key theoretical methods of change for those in distress and comprises three main parts (i) Current distress, concerns and strengths (ii) Problem solving, action planning (iii) Strategies to manage and cope with distress. It is expected that the D-MaP will be developed and updated over the course of the 14 consecutive days of support. Information governance and sharing agreements enable sharing D-MaP with other agencies, where appropriate, and with consent.

∙ DBI Toolkit: A range of established distress management, coping, and behavioural change techniques and strategies were rendered as easy-to-use tools, support sheets, activities, and tasks that can be introduced during the Level 2 response [58–68, 71, 73, 76]. The Toolkit can be used as standalone resources or to facilitate development of the D-MaP and was designed to help individuals overcome or manage their immediate distress, acquire insight into their distress and contributing factors, and begin to develop plans, skills and techniques for longer-term management of their distress.