Photo credit: Florida's Governor's Office
The story below illustrates the urgent need to proactively build psychological and psycho-social-spiritual--Transformational Resilience--for climate change related disasters. It describes how the mental health impacts of these disasters often becomes most acute months after a disaster occurs, which is long after mental health first aid and other disaster mental health services have ended. Prevention is the only solution, and the focus must be on building personal and psycho-social resilience, not merely post-impact stabilization and treatment.
Bob Doppelt
ITRC (International Transformational Resilience Coalition) Coordinator
Casey DeSantis visits Panhandle to announce mental health aid
BY ELIZABETH KOH HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
Florida is sending more mental health aid to the Hurricane Michael-stricken Panhandle nearly nine months after landfall, first lady Casey DeSantis announced Wednesday morning, after local officials had warned that the region needs significantly more help to treat an uptick in mental health issues.
The aid adds counselors, virtual resources and temporary housing to a region that is still struggling to pick up after the Category 5 storm carved a path of destruction through Florida’s northwest. But the aid, some leaders warned, only begins to address the long-running needs in the aftermath of Michael.
DeSantis’ announcement Wednesday included a plan to implement telehealth — or access through technology and the Internet to healthcare services — in every public school in five affected counties to connect children to mental health services by the first day of school later this summer. The telehealth initiative is expected to reach 35,000 students in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gulf and Liberty counties, she said.
It also included $2.3 million that in the past few weeks was funneled to the Department of Children and Families through FEMA, which will increase outreach services and pay for some crisis counselors in an existing community program through 2020. The federal Department of Education has also awarded $1.25 million for Bay County’s school district to add licensed social workers and paraprofessionals to each school campus.
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