On A Limb with Claudia

I just received an email from the Humanitarian Assistance Project (HAP), the assistance arm of my professional organization. These are the folks that provide trauma training and assistance in emergency situations around the world. The organization was founded by the inventor of EMDR, Francine Shapiro, after the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. The currently provide training and assistance around the globe in every emergency situation, and now for Katrina.

Their email had such great advice that I just had to share it:

1. While all of us want to reach out and help immediately, and some are positioned locally so that they can do just that, we have learned from experience that the primary focus of assistance right now must be search and rescue, reestablishment of material safety and security and, wherever possible, some semblance of community order, even if it is in a shelter camp far from survivors’ homes. As these primary
needs are addressed, most survivors will demonstrate great resilience in bouncing back from initial traumatic response. We need to permit this initial recovery work to go forward as the immediate priority.

2. If past experience is a guide, at least 15 % of survivors will sooner or later present symptoms of PTSD that will require treatment. In addition, many first responders and later caregivers will likely experience secondary traumatization that can benefit from therapeutic intervention. The period of disruption for survivors will clearly extend over many months. It is important that HAP plan its primary intervention for this second period, when public focus on the initial disaster may well have faded from the front pages, but when the need and the opportunity to address it will be most well defined.

3. Because survivors are being dispersed over hundreds of miles and dozens of communities by emergency management agencies, we need to determine exactly where these communities are, who is managing the shelters, and which communities are already well supplied with clinicians whom we can help mobilize and support in volunteer roles. We also need to identify communities that will shelter survivors where EMDR clinicians are rare, and where we may be able to offer local clinicians rapid training in EMDR so that they can serve survivors in need.

During the Columbine “situation” a lot of people rushed to the area to “help” but mostly got in the way. This is good advice for all of us.

Filed under: Update