Skills for Psychological Recovery: Field Operations Guide
VA National Center for PTSD & NCTSN · 2010 · 170 pages · For clinicians and trained helpers supporting disaster survivors
Read it at the official source
Same explicit grant as the PFA guide: free to copy and redistribute unmodified, with attribution, and never for a fee.
If the publisher link moves: archived copy
The step after Psychological First Aid: a skills-based intervention for disaster survivors in the weeks to months after the event, teaching problem solving, positive activity scheduling, managing reactions, helpful thinking, and rebuilding healthy social connections. Each skill comes with provider scripts and survivor handouts.
The guide is explicit that SPR is a skills intervention rather than formal psychotherapy, which is exactly what makes it deployable by a broad range of trained helpers. Official translations exist in Spanish, Japanese, and several other languages.
Run it with these materials
SPR's five skills map almost one-to-one onto the site's activation, problem-solving, and thought worksheets.
This manual is a publication of VA National Center for PTSD & NCTSN. Therapy Resource is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, its publisher. The summary above is our own; always follow the manual itself and your clinical judgment. If you are in crisis, contact 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or call 911.