From Crisis to Recovery: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Disaster Mental Health Conference

By Rocky Mountain Region DMH Institute Press

Events around the world continue to present challenges for first responders and mental health professionals. Natural and man-made disasters continue. Evidence mounts concerning potential events such as global warming and the effects this may have worldwide. Avian Flu remains a concern as do forms of biological terrorism and natural hazards such as tsunamis, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. The 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka and Thailand continues to have a significant impact on that area of the world. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to impact those countries, the Middle East and the United States. Preparing our communities and families not only for deployments and support of those deployed and their families, but also for the aftermath and return of our military and National Guard personnel into our communities is important for all.

What can we expect from all of these? How do communities and first responders handle these? What role does mental health play? How do first responders and mental health professionals plan together for responding to future events and learning from past ones. Using a strategic planning approach, how do we identity potential threats and identify target populations and groups? What resources are available for which identified threats? How do we do such planning, how often, and how do we exercise such plans prior to events? What can we learn from such events and how do we incorporate what we learn into future planning?

It is crucial that response, resilience, recovery and follow-up be included in our planning. Additional variables important in responding include cultural knowledge and sensitivity. We need to prepare to respond appropriately within a culture not our own, whether locally, nationally, or internationally.

November 8-10, 2007, the Rocky Mountain Region Disaster Mental Health Institute held their Annual Disaster Mental Health Conference in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The theme of this conference was: From Crisis To Recovery: Resilience and Strategic Planning for the Future.

RM DMH Institute Press
PO Box 786
Laramie, WY 82073-0786
Phone: [phone]
www.rmrinstitute.org

"Learning from the past and planning for the future"

An Imprint of Loving Healing Press www.LHPress.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rocky Mountain Region DMH Institute Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781615999835

Reviews for From Crisis to Recovery

[travelvic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While natural and man-made disasters continue to garner attention from international onlookers, the emergency and disaster management community continues to look for ways to better prepare and respond to these scenarios. The United States’ federally-mandated four-pronged approach – prevent, prepare, respond, and recover – allows for a comprehensive methodology when considering what actions should be taken before, during, and after a given event. Yet much of what is categorized as ‘emergency management’ by the general public is physical – stocking supplies, having adequate shelter, and clean-up, for example. A truly all-encompassing plan includes the psychological and sociological implications of disasters. Editor George W. Doherty presents the “Proceedings of the 6th Rocky Mountain Regional Disaster Mental Health Conference” to address these important aspects of emergency and disaster management. “Proceedings of the 6th Rocky Mountain Region Disaster Mental Health Conference” contains the presented material from the November 2007 conference held in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In keeping with its theme ‘From Crisis to Recovery: Resilience and Strategic Planning for the Future’, subjects such as police suicides and traumatic stress in the workplace, psychological first aid for both responders and the communities they assist, ethical considerations, strategic planning and state-level implementation of behavioral health response, the importance of non-verbal communication and multicultural work, and special population needs are discussed throughout the text. As a graduate student in emergency and disaster management, I found the subject matter to be relevant, interesting, and applicable to the many facets of the field. While the text reflects no discernible spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors, I found the format to be ‘uncomfortable’. The book’s size is larger than I would consider normal or typical and the font size is enormous. It seems as though most books, especially those utilized by the emergency management community, are smaller and easy to throw in a bag to read on the go. Although lightweight and in paperback format, my copy of the book quickly began showing wear and tear because of its cumbersome size. Editor George W. Doherty’s “Proceedings of the 6th Rocky Mountain Region Disaster Mental Health Conference” is a fantastic resource for behavioral health related subjects in the emergency and disaster management field. A must have for any responder’s library!

[joles_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is an excellent resource for any person in or interested in Emergency Services (Fire, Police, Ambulance, Civil Air Patrol, etc) or Military Services. It is also a wonderful resource for those involved in planning for emergencies (town/city officials, school administrators, etc.) The book is set up by topic and under each topic is a scenario, description, analysis, resources, etc. The information held within is very accurate and compelling.

[jcovington_12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is not a detailed outline of the Conference itself, but rather is a publication of the papers presented at the meeting. The papers themselves cover a wide variety of topics ranging from the study of police officer suicide rates (which are startlingly high) to the study of how trauma victims (in this case, bomber pilots) can subsequently inflict emotional trauma on their loved ones.The principle theme of these papers is not disasters themselves, but the emotional health (and especially the response to mental/emotional trauma) of those who must deal with these disasters on a regular basis, form rescue workers to the military.The papers themselves are short reads and very interesting. The papers are also written in "plain English," making use of little technical jargon or psycho-babble. This makes this book ideal reading material for those times when you want some "substantial" reading, but do not have the time to invest in a longer work. I read it while waiting for my daughter's horse-riding lessons, while feeding the baby, and during breaks at work.