Good Morning,

Today I am writing a rationale for a community mental health agency to have an updated disaster response plan.

My employer does have a plan that focuses primarily on small, isolated internal incidents (ie, fire, violence, bad weather) that do not effect operations. For larger community events the plan reads simply to follow the county Emergency Operations plan. The county plans are pretty sketchy on behavioral health response & say--pretty much--for the mental health coordinator to follow the plan he/she developed.

So, a little non-productive tailchasing ensues and the plan has to be worked out on the ground. Not a situation that I find fun.
While looking around for statistics on the need for psychological response I found the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The organization has some good resources for professionals and citizens & is soon holding its annual conference. The group is research-oriented more than practice-oriented. The site appears comprehensive and worth a second look.

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