The NC DRN is proud to announce that the new DRN on-line training has been launched this week! This is a much-anticipated course that has been one of the primary tasks of the DRN Task Force over the past year.
As many of you know, the NC DRN held workshops providing day-long orientations to disaster mental health workshops which were held throughout the state as a way to increase the number of trained mental health professionals able to respond in a disaster. Approximately two years ago, our DRN identified a need for alternative methods of training busy mental health professionals across the state, so we partnered with the UNC School of Public Health Preparedness Center to produce an online training format. Advantages of this new training are greatly improved flexibility, accessibility to anyone with Internet access, and reduced time away from home to complete the required training.
The on-line training consists of eight 30 minute modules featuring topics ranging from the phases of disaster and mental health intervention to ethical issues and volunteer activation. The modules were prepared and narrated by volunteer members of the Disaster Response Network who are practicing mental health professionals with disaster response experience. Once participants have completed the on-line didactic portion of the training, they will be invited to attend a 2 hour workshop featuring disaster simulations and hands-on practice. (We have just about finished development of these live workshops and hope to begin offering them in early 2008.) Upon the completion of both the on-line training and the live workshop, licensed mental health professionals from NC will be able to receive 6 hours of CE credit.
Our primary aim is to have more licensed mental health professionals from NC trained and ready to provide pro bono services in times of a disaster; however, anyone is free to register to take the on-line training of 8 modules. The training can also be used as a refresher for those of you who received training quite some time ago or prior to deployment in a disaster situation. We also are hoping that some of you experienced DRN members will consider attending some of the live 2 hour simulation workshops, as we suspect these will be quite interesting, informative and experiential. The more varied experience and input we have, the better I suspect these workshops will be!
Being a disaster volunteer yourself, I know you can appreciate how disaster response is different than other types of mental health work and how specialized training is essential. I hope you will help us in spreading the word to friends and colleagues who have expressed interest in this area. And, of course, we also welcome you to check out the training as well!
To register go to http://nccphp.sph.unc.edu/NCDRNtraining.
Thank you for your ongoing work and interest in the DRN and in disaster mental health work!
Sandra Wartski, Psy.D.
NC DRN
