Dennis Potter is a social worker who has extensive experience in the field of Critical Incident Stress Management, mental health, and substance abuse programs. He helped to form one of the first community-based Crisis Response Teams in the country. He was one of the founding members of the Mid-West Michigan CISM Team and the Michigan Crisis Response Association. Dennis is recognized as a Diplomat, by the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. To achieve this credential, Dennis completed a comprehensive application and examination, along with supporting documentation, to validate his experience in working with survivors of traumatic events, knowledge of the literature, and level of education.

Dennis has received training and supervision in Cognitive Therapy from the Beck Institute in Philadelphia, PA. He has participated in a train the trainer course in Motivational Interviewing and has provided this training to a variety of mental health and substance abuse agencies.  He is an experienced trainer in a variety of topics as described in his training biography below.

Since 1989, Dennis has provided CISM training in 39 states in the USA, 5 provinces of Canada, Denmark, Portugal, and Latvia.

He has written articles for various journals on the topic of working with Critical Incident Stress. Dennis co-authored the model for Post Action Staff Support for taking care of teams after deployment. Dennis is a co-author of the book, Practical Concepts and Training Exercises for Crisis Intervention Teams.

Dennis has presented at many local, state, regional, national, and international conferences.  He has been a presenter at the last Fourteen International Critical Incident Stress Foundation World Congresses.  Dennis was awarded the ICISF Excellence in Training and Education Award at the 2011 World Congress.

In 2021, Dennis was awarded the Civilian Excellence in Service Award by the Grand Rapids Police Department for his work over the years with their Cop-to-COP program. He also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from ICISF for his contributions to the field of CISM over the years.