The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #61171

Lib Hinson, LISW, MSW, Director of Social Work, Trident Public Health District, Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), 4050 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston, SC 59405, 843-746-3835, hinsonL@dhec.sc.gov

Since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Charleston, SC, community has worked to improve their preparedness and to collaborate with disaster response agencies. The State Mental Health agency thought they had this component covered. After a meeting called by the local public health social work director with other community members, they realized there were areas not addressed. This presentation will outline steps that the community took to address the difficulties they encountered in working together. First, this presentation will share ideas used to address the resistance, complacency, and difficulties encountered in bringing a community group together to promote community collaboration with mental health. Second, tools and processes developed to assess the capacity of and to develop a central registry of qualified volunteer mental health responders available if the mental health's capacity to respond was exceeded will be shared. Third, the process of identifying terrorism related training needs and providing training to the community will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• identify groups at-risk for complacency about and resistance to collaborating on community preparedness.
• list six interventions to address resistance.
• identify operational guidelines for assessing the local capacity of mental health responders.
• develop and maintain a central registry of volunteer mental health responders.
• identify training needs and methods for providing training.

Keywords: Social Work Roles, War