Donate to Help Mental Health Efforts in Haiti
Many mental health needs are expected to emerge in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010. The National Council's Project Helping Hands supports mental health efforts in Haiti and for Haitian populations in the U.S. Help us meet the need — DONATE NOW!

Mental health advisory for health professionals from the Center for Disease Control.

• Project Helping Hands Overview
• Help provided
• Donate now
• Help offered for disaster mental health response in the wake of Haiti earthquake
• Craigslist founder donates $15,000 to National Council’s Project Helping Hands
• Emergency mental health and addiction treatment needs
• Emergency assistance available for Gustav victims — press release
• Two years after Katrina — press release
• Two years after Katrina — provider survey findings
• Answering needs in the wake of Greensburg tornado — press release

Overview

The National Council launched Project Helping Hands after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S.Gulf Coast in August 2005 — to help meet emergency mental health needs in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Today, Project Helping Hands has been extended to help behavioral healthcare organizations respond to emergency mental health and addictions treatment needs in the wake of any disasters in any community worldwide.

We welcome donations and requests for help.

Contact us at Communications@thenationalcouncil.org or at 202.684.7457.

Help Provided

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Project Helping Hands provided grants to treatment organizations in Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. The grants were used to meet an array of emergency needs including hiring treatment staff; setting up emergency outreach offices; and purchasing of medications, office supplies, communications equipment, and vehicles.

In 2007, two years after the storm, there continue to be unmet mental health treatment needs in and around Louisiana compounded by continuing staff shortages and the emotional affects of the aftermath on remaining staff. And we have continued to gave grants to providers as well as to local associations to help recognize the contributions of first responders, to provide staff training and support, and to restore damaged facilities.

With support from AstraZeneca, the National Council has extended Project Helping Hands beyond the Gulf Coast, to support emergency behavioral healthcare service needs in the wake of disaster in any community.

Since Katrina, we’ve provided emergency grants to behavioral health organizations in:

• Kansas, after the May 2007 tornado
• Utah, in the wake of the August 2007 mine disaster
• Minnesota and Iowa, after the June 2008 Midwest floods
• Louisiana, to support recovery from Hurricane Gustav in August 2008
  
  Our grants have been used to ensure treatment staff is available, to sustain essential services, and to pay for extended outreach services.
  
  The National Council is committed to the continuation of Project Helping Hands as an immediate resource to psychiatrically vulnerable and traumatized populations when disaster strikes any community — nationally and internationally. Through support in times of disaster, we help people and we raise awareness of mental illness as a very serious health issue.

Emergency Mental health and Addiction Treatment Needs

In the wake of disaster, community behavioral health providers must address the critical needs of two groups — those who experience the onset of trauma and mental disorders as a result of the disaster and those with pre-existing serious mental illnesses and addictions who need continued care and treatment.

It is estimated that up to 25 to 30 percent of people—in severely exposed communities — experience new mental health and addictions problems in the wake of disasters. Such persons, who are traumatized by disaster but do not have pre-existing behavioral health disorders, need professional crisis counseling and help in formulating practical plans to regain normalcy.

Consumers with pre-existing serious mental illnesses are very vulnerable to stress. In addition, separation from home, family, and their normal living situation adds to the vulnerability of an already vulnerable population. Their immediate needs are therefore for access to the medications they normally take and for ongoing psychological support. They also need support to integrate into their new communities and to find and use local resources, given that disaster has caused them to be displaced and relocated, for indefinite periods or even permanently.

While community behavioral health providers are ideally equipped to serve both groups requiring mental health treatment in the wake of a disaster, they are faced with additional burden on already limited resources and consequently with many challenges such as:
 

• Addressing the needs of staff. As first responders, members of staff often struggle with their own trauma and reactions when they confront disaster. Providers typically face significant temporary or permanent loss of staff in the wake of disaster, due to dislocation and inability to offer competitive salaries. This compounds what is an already serious problem — the shortage of a skilled behavioral healthcare workforce. Further, providers need additional staff because they have to care for new disaster victims, in addition to their existing caseloads.
• The need for increased infrastructure and resources from cell phones to computers to transportation — often, the providers must continue to provide services, despite significant damage to their own facilities and equipment.
• Lack of direction on how to handle new patients, many of whom have no medical records or history to provide in the wake of the disaster.
• The struggle to cover the costs of treating hundreds of new patients without quite knowing how and when they will be compensated. Financial support is usually slow in coming through and when it does, access to funds is complicated. Providers responding to disaster thus have the dual challenge of short-term cash flow problems and longer-term access to special funding.
• Shortage of psychotropic medications to meet the increased need.
• Support of disaster victims with serious mental illness who lose the supported housing they live in while transitioning to community living.
• Patients who lose this 24-7 support would be devastated and might have to be re-hospitalized — a horrible and expensive consequence.

Community providers responding to disasters have also expressed to the National Council the need for technical assistance, state-of-the-science information and educational tools and resources to help in accurate diagnosis and treatment of trauma victims. Providers also need forums to share with one another knowledge, experience, and best practices on all aspects of dealing with the aftermath of disaster.

Despite the many challenges, we’ve seen that in the face of disaster, community behavioral health providers keep their doors open and continue to serve all in need. The National Council is committed to helping to meet this need through Project Helping Hands.

Questions? Contact us at Communications@thenationalcouncil.org or at 202.684.7457.