Content provided in partnership with
green cross project: A model for providing emergency mental-health aid after September 11, The
Phi Kappa Phi Forum, Spring 2002 by Figley, Charles R, Figley, Kathleen Regan
GCP volunteers facilitated seventy-six group defusing/educational sessions from September 17 through October 14, 2001, with the fund and union staff, and 2,159 individual defusing/crisis interventions. Individuals with more than critical needs were referred to the Employee Assistance Program so that their needs could be met. There were approximately thirty referrals to the EAP by GCP personnel.
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GCP volunteers' primary function on a deployment is to assess, stabilize, and refer as needed. During the assessment and stabilization process at 32B-J, more specific needs were discovered. The family members who had lost loved ones in the attack on the World Trade Center Towers faced a very difficult situation. Most of them would not have the body of their loved one for formal final services. This absence usually results in an ambiguous-- loss process. Dr. Pauline Boss from the University of Minnesota, an expert in helping family members process ambiguous loss, brought two teams of ambiguous-loss experts from her program to New York City to work with affected 32B-J families.
The first team of four ambiguous-loss specialists and Dr. Boss were on site from September 26 through 29, 2001. During their first deployment, the University of Minnesota team was able to contact and assist four family members who had lost loved ones and help them begin processing their ambiguous grief.
During the University of Minnesota's second deployment, from October 10 through 14, 2001, Dr. Boss and a team of four held a training program on ambiguous loss with twenty-three local mentalhealth professionals. This training was put to use on Saturday October 14, 2001, when eight families were brought together at 32B-j to begin developing their support system.
Other Objectives
* Objective 2: Provide a five-hour course in basic care for the traumatized to 100 licensed mentalhealth providers who will form the basis for a referral networking system working with the Employee Assistance Program at 32B-J. Provide additional courses on traumatology as needed and requested.
* Objective 3: Provide a course on compassion fatigue that will increase self-care for those mental-health professionals and others who have provided services to the victims. The compassionfatigue course is designed to keep the mentalhealth professionals healthy so that they can continue to provide services.
GCP trainers provided four sixteen-hour trainings for certification as a Registered Traumatologist to sixty-nine mental-health professionals. Training included basic care for the traumatized, as well as self-care for the mental-health professionals while working with the traumatized. Of those mental-health professionals, forty-five are part of 32B-J's Employee Assistance Program. The other twenty-four have indicated that they will volunteer their services to 32B-J as needed.
During the thirty-day mobilization to reach the above objectives it became clear that there would be far more traumatized Host members and employees requesting trauma services. There was ongoing interest and effort in establishing a GCP chapter at the time that this article was written.
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