| Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools. |
Challenges in Implementing Disaster Mental Health Programs: State Program Directors Perspectives
Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD), Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School
Department of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School, National Center for PTSD and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism, University of Maryland, fran.norris{at}dartmouth.edu The Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program grants supplemental federal funding to states and territories for individual and community crisis intervention services in the aftermath of presidentially declared disasters. Little research has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these services, and few data exist to guide policies and programs. A qualitative study of thirty-eight state program directors (representing 95 percent of all such programs over a five-year period) identified the numerous challenges that states experience when planning, applying for, implementing, maintaining, phasing out, and evaluating these federally funded programs. The results highlighted the importance of including mental health in state-level disaster plans, fostering collaborative relationships across institutions, clarifying program guidelines, sharing innovations across programs, and building state capacity for needs assessment and program evaluation.
Key Words: crisis counseling disaster mental health community outreach indigenous workers state capacity disaster preparedness
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 604, No. 1,
152-170 (2006) |
|||