ABSTRACT
For as long as I can remember, I have been involved in community work. As a student activist in the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, involvement in community action is familiar terrain for me. Thus sitting in the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) national convention’s opening session in 2005—where the entire national body of professors, supervisors, and leaders in the counseling field were together in the main convention hall three months after Hurricane Katrina—I found myself shocked by the lack of response to the devastation on the Gulf Coast. The President of ACES asked the room of 800 people how many had been to the Gulf Coast, and three people raised their hands. It was well known that the federal government and Red Cross had failed miserably in responding to the dramatic mental health needs after the hurricane, making it even more astonishing that some of the leading professionals in the country had not stepped up to the plate.
