ABSTRACT

Disasters and other potentially traumatic events can adversely affect the mental health of those exposed. In order to minimize the negative psychosocial consequences of these events, it is important for certain health care organizationsand institutions of higher learning to operate disaster behavioral health (DBH) services. This chapter clariœes important considerations related to services implementation; delineates content and processes in the training of managers, supervisors, service practitioners, and teams; and identiœes strategies for achieving program sustainability. Discussion is organized around two primary phases of disaster response in which teams are likely to be deployed: the immediate hours and days following an event, and the weeks and months later when many survivors may beneœt from brief crisis counseling.