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New Jersey Prepares for TopOff III
In an ongoing effort to improve the
readiness of the nation's first responders, the third congressionally
mandated national exercise will be held this year in Connecticut,
New Jersey, Canada
and the United Kingdom.
As the sponsoring entity, the U.S. Federal Government will be fully engaged
in all exercise- related activities in the states and abroad.
New
Jersey's disaster mental health system will play a
significant role in anticipating and responding to the needs of mock victims,
First Responders and the wider community during this important test.
Find out more....
Quick
Links...
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Greetings!
Welcome
to the inaugural issue of New Jersey Crisis Counselor, a bi-monthly
newsletter created for New Jersey's
disaster mental health responder community! This newsletter was created as
a means of sharing important information about the continuing evolution of
both the science and practice of disaster and trauma counseling in our
State and around the nation, and to continue to expand our capacity to
provide rapid and effective psycho-social support to those impacted by
disasters. As the recent disaster in South East Asia
reminds us, disasters can strike anywhere and at anytime. Readiness,
therefore, is a responsibility we all must take seriously.
I hope
that the newsletter will also help us to maintain the strong bonds that
have developed during disaster responses, and to further unite us in our
shared interest in assisting the victims and survivors of disasters,
violence and other crisis events.
Here you
will find news of new training programs, the beginning of a credentialing
process for disaster mental health responders, winter survival tips for
disaster outreach workers, and much more. I encourage you to forward this
newsletter to your colleagues involved in all aspects of disaster response,
whether they are mental health professionals or not, so that we can
continue to inform the larger emergency management community of new
developments within our field.
I hope
that you enjoy this first issue of the New Jersey Crisis Counselor!
Please take the time to explore the links and other interactive features,
and reach out to us with comments and suggestions for future issues.
Best
regards,
Alan G.
Kaufman,
Director,
New Jersey
Division of Mental Health Services
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Early Psycho-Social Support
Tsunami Survivors
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A
Road Map for Crisis Counseling in South East Asia
Exactly
one year to the day before the recent catastrophe in South East Asia, in
the early morning hours of December 26, 2003, a major earthquake struck
Bam, Iran, resulting in 26,000 deaths and homelessness for more that
75,000. On the morning of December 26, 2004, a major undersea earthquake
occurred off the Northwest tip of Indonesia. The quake and
subsequent tsunami that struck 11 countries bordering the Indian Ocean has resulted in nearly 150,000 deaths
and homelessness for millions.
While a
humanitarian disaster of this magnitude is difficult to fully comprehend,
the lessons learned in providing early psycho-social support to the
survivors of the Bam earthquake are now being used as a road map to begin
the daunting task of assisting those ravaged by this event.
In Bam,
and now in South East Asia, the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IRCS) is at the center of organizing many aspects of the
overall relief effort. The Bam relief operation was the first in the
history of the IRCS in which extensive psychological support was deployed
immediately following a large-scale disaster. For the IRCS, this is
quickly becoming a model for future disaster responses.
The
ICRS is long-time supporter of "psychological first aid" as
practical approach for providing psycho-social support during the impact
and immediate post-event phases of a disaster. This model is now being
introduced to crisis counselors in New
Jersey to help mental health responders in
delivering "phase-specific" interventions in the field. The Institute of Medicine and other academic bodies
are increasingly suggesting that psychological first aid (PFA) may be the
preferred model of intervention during the initial stages of a disaster,
when acute fear and anxiety prevail.
You can
find out more about PFA in this issue of New Jersey Crisis Counselor
and learn more about the IRCS psychological support program by clicking
on the link below.
IRCS
Psychological Support in Bam
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Psychological
First Aid
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NJ
Begins New Training Program for Mental Health First Responders
Crisis
counselors are often advised to have a "tool kit" of different
trauma counseling and crisis intervention skills. In the professional
development of crisis counselors the focus of training is most often on
recognizing and addressing traumatic stress reactions. As such,
counseling, debriefing and other approaches are often the appropriate
tools for intervention. But when counselors have participated in
bioterrorism exercises and other events that have required intervention
techniques to deal with the immediate fear and anxiety of the situation,
post-trauma interventions often don't seem to fit the bill. Alternative
tools, such a Psychological First Aid (PFA) are now recommended to
broaden the counselor's skill set and better prepare them for the challenges
that face disaster mental health first responders.
Read
the Full Story...
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Credentialing Disaster Mental Health Responders
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Pilot
Credentialling Program Launched in 7 NJ
Counties
Selecting,
training and sustaining a disaster mental health workforce is integral to the success of any disaster mental
health plan. New Jersey
is one of the first states to recognize the critical importance of a
focus on the disaster mental health workforce, and that recognition is
now being moved a step further in development as the Division of Mental
Health Services launches a pilot credentialing process. The purpose of
credentialing disaster mental health workers is to assure that only the
best trained and most highly skilled workers are providing critical
services at each phase of disaster response.
More About the
Credentialing Process...
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Winter Safety
for Crisis Outreach Workers
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Personal
Preparedness: Adapting Your "Go Kit" for Winter Emergencies
Winter
weather can complicate a disaster "call-out" for all first
responders, including crisis counselors. There are
several steps disaster mental health responders can take now to prepare
for the possibility of a winter disaster mobilization and to improve
their safety for all types of winter travel.
Learn
more...
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Redefining
Readiness
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NY Academy of Medicine Explores Public
Perception in Disaster Response
In
September 2004, the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative
Strategies in Health at the New York Academy of Medicine released an
in-depth report examining how Americans would likely react in the face of
two public health crises: a radiological dirty bomb and a smallpox
outbreak. "Redefining Readiness: Terrorism Planning Through the
Eyes of the Public" challenges some of emergency planners'
assumptions about how people might respond during certain types of
terrorist events. Not only does the report explore the public's reaction
to these crises, it also examined who people want to talk to during and
after these disasters. The results of this survey of 2,545 randomly
selected households are important to emergency planners and responders
alike.
Full
Story
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