- (drop down menu)
- ABOUT
- FIND A COUNSELOR
- LINKS/RESOURCES
- MEMBERSHIP
- MEETINGS & PUBLICATIONS
| MEMBERS ONLY | Click here to join AAPC today! |
| Password | |
Don't know your Username/Password? Click here. |
|
|
Join AAPC 2009 Workshop Information Currents  Information on Journals Membership and Referral Directories! Regional Links Mission and Goals 2005-09 ADDICTION/RECOVERY Clergy Training Men Get Depression PBS' Depression: Out of the Shadows, to air May 21. Check your local affiliate for air time. THERAPISTS NEEDED FOR IRAQ VETS ARTICLES Counselors and Clergy: Partners in Healing Community Outreach |
Hurricane Katrina - Trauma ResponseThis webpage is established in response to the recent disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina. E-mail Responses********************************************************* Day One From the air, you can’t tell. There are roads and houses and barns and fields. And then as we land I begin noticing that something is missing. There are few vehicles on the roads – some, but not many. For those of us who live in metropolitan areas, imagine your city with no traffic on a sunny weekday. The plane is overbooked with workin’ blokes and professional women dressed down to meet the coming environment, people with youth and skills to use. There is one other plane, a Northwest, at the terminal of the greater New Orleans airport. It is loading and has a line that snakes back through the terminal. Delta tells us to clean up after ourselves so they can load and make their return flight as quickly as possible. “Two broke airlines serving a broke city,” I think. Both planes are guarded by armed Army personnel. I haul my considerable luggage to the Avis counter at the far end of the airport. (We had been told that whatever we were going to need, we had to bring with us – including food and water for twenty-four hours. I was hauling, not only clothes, but a travel coffee pot with coffee ( a delicious luxury), a camp chair, communion stuff, music, meds, laundry detergent – you name it – it was a different packing experience. The Avis guy is jovial enough as he tells me that I need to go outside, catch the bus to the main Avis office. No computers in the airport. “You may not have heard, but we had some rain here not long ago,” he told me. I wondered where he stayed at night and where he ate. “Get gas now,” advises the guy at the main office counter, “and get it whenever you can.” “There is gas, but not always when and where you need it. Have a wonderful time in New Orleans.” Finally, a car and directions. It’s not like New Orleans is new to me. It has been a favorite place to go since I was five, riding in the back seat of our old Ford woodie, my grandmother in the front with my mother driving, and my two sisters and I fighting over who got the windows. I usually lost. Then we came to the Huey P Long Bridge. It went up and up and up and the car went silent, as first we saw a ship passing under the bridge below, and above us a train chugging up the approach. I knew we were doomed. We ate marvelous food on wooden tables covered with newspaper. When the tabletop was full of discarded shells, someone came along with a garbage can and scraped the whole thing clean, replacing the soggy newspapers with fresh ones, and the feast began anew. I’ve been coming back ever since. But the city winds around following the river so that a body easily becomes disoriented and loses his sense of direction. This place has long thrived on disoriented people. So I have my map. Driving in, you begin to see it – walls blown out, roofs missing, cars at odd angles where they aren’t supposed to be, enormous piles of soggy furniture and clothing. The road in carries more traffic – much construction-related heavy stuff along with tractor-trailers packed with supplies. Not knowing the exact whereabouts of my hotel, I happen on the Police station and stop to ask. There is a lone cop in the parking area sitting in front of a huge fan trying to stay cool and away from the lingering smell of – I don’t know what to call it, maybe the most foul elevator you ever smelled. The garage is littered with boats and used up equipment. I find the hotel, one of those $300 per night places now catering to out-of-town cops, and relief personnel of all stripes. The staff of this elegant place is dressed like the rest of us, in jeans, and not long after I discover that the person who checks you in may also be your wait-person at dinner, or bring fresh towels to your room a few days later. “Don’t drink the water. It’s good for bathing, but use bottled water to brush your teeth.” I wonder about the bathing part. The bellhop helping me get my bags comments, “It really smells bad, but it was a whole lot worse a few days ago.” No maid service; the restaurant is open from four p.m. until eleven each day; there is electricity, but no TV. And incidentally, the hotel is booked this coming Tuesday and Wednesday so you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay. MREs and tents are not far away either in imagination or physically. From my window, there are office buildings that look in tact except for occasional sheets of plywood covering windows high up. It really doesn’t look so bad, except that so very little of what makes our days work, works. That, and there are few people. The locals who are here look shocked. They are doing familiar jobs, but they seem to have gotten caught in a time warp or were suddenly teleported to a different planet. I called the woman who is to be my boss or coordinator or whatever – that part is also unclear. She tells me to meet another team-mate for dinner in the hotel this evening and come to the main work site in the morning. Then we will get our assignments, some idea of working conditions and the people we will be working with. We will work over on the north side of the lake, around Slidell which took the brunt of Katrina. That is all we know right now. Last night, while waiting to get sleepy enough to go to bed, I watched Nightline. They were talking about the probability of a flu pandemic in the near future. One expert commented, “The first thing to go is the infrastructure – fuel, food, transportation, communications, supply lines and sources.” That is the condition here: a city with no potable water or sanitation; toxic dust, ruined sections of the city that will have to be bulldozed; little food, few people. Meanwhile, I sit in my air-conditioned room and see the U.S. 90 bridge gleaming in the sun over the river. It’s odd. The Ninth Ward This is the place where many tight, large extended families have lived for generations. One of its most notorious projects was named for the streetcar made famous by Tennessee Williams that ran nearby - Desire. Only the trees have been cut out of the roads. Outside of that practical step, the place is exactly the way the two floods left it. There are piles of rotting clothes, sheetrock, kitchen cabinets, and the prizes of a lifetime on the curb awaiting disposal so common in other places where there is hope. Only silence and water marks on the sides of the buildings. I cannot imagine that there will be anyone one returning to this place hard against the interstate. It is too toxic with chemicals and mold. One thinks about the people who will come with their heavy equipment to tear down and haul away this whole part of town. Will they be sprayed down and detoxed like the emergency personnel who have ventured here searching and inspecting, marking each apartment and house with their spray painted codes? I happened here by accident, a wrong exit from the freeway. I have deliberately stayed away from the most devastated areas. I don’t need to see more ruins. Besides, I see the people who emerged from those ruins. They and the people who have been trying to help them are what this small group of mental health professionals are here for. One elderly man, his voice packed with the strength of the storm that took life as he knew it quietly repeats, “It was terrible! Terrible!” Another enraged fisherman spews his story of how he lived on his boat for thirty years with his wife, fishing from the Gulf to the North Atlantic, building his stake in the world. In a few short hours it disappeared – houses, trucks, equipment and belongings while he and his wife clung to his boat as it slowly was dismantled by wind, waves and falling trees. When the snakes began to crawl up onto the wreckage, like him, seeking a safe place, his wife broke down and was hospitalized shortly after her rescue. Others appear at the clinic where I work during the week, clutching empty pill bottles and wearing the look of sheer desperation. These are people with mental illnesses whose meds are almost gone. They know that before long, the demons will return. They are trying to take care of themselves, and are succeeding quite well, but know they won’t be able to for long. They have no medical records, no referring doctors, no pharmacy to call, no familiar face to talk to. Those are all gone. We start them all over again sending them home with their medications, a dose of encouragement, and a later appointment. The Louisiana State Department of Mental Health has a plan and they are working it. It is a good plan being used under very difficult circumstances. What they needed were more bodies to make up for their displaced staff and ruined facilities. The “more bodies” part is us. Each morning we meet on the grounds of an old mental hospital. Sometimes we begin late, everyone delayed behind miles-long lines of cars trying to sign up with the Red Cross, or utility crews clearing trees and resurrecting phone and electric lines, or heavy equipment clearing trees from hospital roads. We all have a long commute, a hundred miles or so to the meeting and work places. The meeting is an absolute necessity because while we slept, someone moved all the chess pieces – little things like where we are going to spend the night, the size of the team and a myriad of details designed to help us do what we came here to do. Day Eleven There was a bit of excitement yesterday at one of the Red Cross shelters, an almost new structure surrounded by water. First there was a report, later partly confirmed, of several water moccasins invading the staff bathroom. Though they were caught and given unceremonious transport outside, it caused no small increase in anxious watchfulness among the staff. Later, at a location where Red Cross debit cards were being passed out, an armed fugitive threatened to take a Red Cross staff member hostage prompting several volunteers to volunteer to take early retirement from the scene. Mostly, this SAMHSA team – government speak for Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration under the federal Department of Health and Human Services – helps with mental health needs among evacuees and staff in the shelters. Others of us are assigned to outpatient walk-in facilities doing assessments, referrals and crisis debriefing with the staff, many of whom were directly affected by the storms. The sixteen of us come from every section of the U.S. mainland and Hawaii. The team is made up of psychiatrists, psychologists, a lone, stray adventurous E.R. nurse from New York, and various stripes of social workers and therapists who, signed on for two weeks to work along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. In this swath from Hammond to Slidell occurred some of the greatest damage both from wind and the storm surge. Here are places that resemble the nearby coastal towns of Mississippi – Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Gulfport, Biloxi – towns that were by in large completely erased. I am assigned to a mental health facility in Ponchatoula where the damage was not so great, but which has served as a refuge for those who washed up from flooded New Orleans or fled their homes further east. Many are mentally or physically disabled and/or elderly – people who had no way to get out of Katrina and Rita’s way. They will be among the last to leave the shelters because of their need for special housing and support. This clinic fills prescriptions, provides counseling and re-establishes services that have disappeared from the other side of the lake and likely will remain out of service while the old public hospitals and clinics in the city are demolished and rebuilt. There is no such thing as available housing anywhere close – few apartments or even rooms in private houses, and such a lack of hotel space that calling them provokes laughter. You can get a room reservation “sometime” next year. Instead, the Red Cross is looking to transport people to the homes of relatives, sometimes as far away as Seattle. Many are reluctant to leave. They have spent their lives in the New Orleans area. It is where they had their support networks, their families and in many cases where they lived their entire lives until the floods. Being here reminds me of the images of frontier towns, full of the energy of working people who were willing to endure a temporary and basic existence in exchange for a future. The Gulf region and New Orleans particularly, is now a city reserved for the able bodied, for those with trade skills who are willing to wear protective clothing and work long hours six or seven days a week. It is no place for children, the elderly or fragile members of society, so places are being sought where they can live, perhaps for several years until the social and medical infrastructure is reconstituted and able to support them. Every day though, there are small changes to be seen between sunrise and sunset. More stoplights are brought back online over a larger area; there is more heavy traffic on the roads. The French Quarter, one of the highest and least damaged areas is attracting more and more people to its bars and restaurants. Service is often snail-like due to limited staffs, and the menu is abbreviated but it is there nonetheless, and the food is excellent. When we first arrived, we quickly learned to find dinner on the north side of the lake. It was cheaper and of greater variety than in the city. While relatively few restaurants are open pending health inspections, the ones that are open are jammed. It seems that people need some reassurance that life is returning to normal in their communities. Even as the parking lot fills with muddy pickups, the people are dressed in something more than work clothes. The atmosphere is festive, but beyond dinner in this restaurant tonight, more hot, long days of cleanup and repair wait for morning. I have asked other of us imports on elevators, in hotel lobbies and on the street, “What made you come down here?” The answer seems to boil down to some version of, I was watching the reports on TV and something said, “I can do that. So here I am.” From waves of Red Cross volunteers who take off from their regular jobs and foot their own transportation costs, to engineering outfits, to fire and police from all over the country, to specialized professionals, the answer is the same. There is a particular camaraderie among them, and where, in the world, people often ride elevators in silence, here there are introductions, fifteen-second bios and talk about what stake in this enormous work each is doing. Since I came, I have been searching for some way to convey what has happened here. This morning, I heard a report from St Bernard’s Parish, one of the worst affected places. The man being interviewed stopped mid-conversation and commented in his heavy Cajun accent about a lone bird singing in the background. “That’s the first time we have heard birds since the storm.” It has been almost a month and a half. We are nearing the end of our time here, and so I am beginning to think about it. Was it worth it? To me? To the people I worked with and for? Would I volunteer again? How did the stories and sights of devastation affect me? What does it mean to me? Some of the questions are better answered by the people I worked with and for. I think I made a difference in some lives, but not others. The guy we sent back to jail after the cops brought him in for an evaluation probably doesn’t think so. The law in Louisiana says that anyone who brings out the SWAT team must have a psychiatric evaluation. Whatever he was, he was not in need of anything we could help him with. There are those whose records and medicines and pharmacies were lost in New Orleans. We were able to connect them with new prescriptions and continuity of care on this north side of the Lake. They were thankful. What remains a question is how some of these folks, who suffer from acute mental illnesses, fared better than many people who don’t? Their houses and things are gone. Their networks are gone, perhaps permanently. How did they manage to run from floodwaters and fairly quickly re-establish themselves in new communities complete with jobs and places to live? I wonder if the challenge of living every day with this strange unpredictable thing that happens in their mind, also strengthens them to cope with the likes of Katrina and Rita? Of course, we did not see the ones who have not come to the clinics. Perhaps as the weeks and months go by, they will be discovered in jails and living under bridges like they do in so many places. The other questions, including the ones that involve some theological reflection have no answers yet. Perhaps they will come in a few months; maybe not for years. I will get there when I get there. I wonder how affected towns, cities and states will reconstitute themselves. What will the new New Orleans look like? Could there possibly be a balance achieved between the old guard business interests and politicos who have ruled the city for generations and the residents who actually live there? Is there some peace to be reached between human activity and a river that has long wanted to pack its bags and move west to LaFayette. Is there a way to allow the bayous to heal from the man-made effects of dredging - erosion and salt-water infiltration, and to once again let the river resume building new land? I am not so gullible as to think that utopian changes are afoot, but as some wise person involved in the recovery effort observed in the wake of the hurricane, “We don’t accomplish big long term things, only minor things that make big differences in peoples’ lives today.” Already, the region is filling up with hucksters, carpetbaggers, politicians in search some advantage and those ever present wraiths who dance on the graves of the dead. The difference between these storms and others lies in the upcoming struggle over who will get to develop those huge areas of the city and outlying parishes facing demolition. Will those who once lived there have any say in the matter? Probably not, since many were renters and were utterly wiped out. I am going this evening with a psychiatrist to see some of the neighborhoods and the places where the levees gave way. We are going quietly since some on our team think our looking constitutes ghoul-like sacrilege. We will look, and talk and God knows what we will feel. I think that is why we are going. This whole trip has been seeing, thinking, feeling things we have never experienced before. The psychiatrist, a native New Yorker, became involved in disaster work after 9-11. She has talked some about her attitude about death. I suspect that for both of us, our little foray will be both a mirror of life and a subject of late night contemplation as time goes on. The Levee We do not have much time to visit both the levees and the neighborhoods before darkness and hunger drive us to food. Instead of a lengthy trip to the south shore of Lake Pontchartrian where the 17th Street and Industrial Canals join the lake, we opted for an alternative levee site, one in the French Quarter that held through the storms. My psychiatrist friend does not know what a levee is. Parking at the end of a dead end street we walk up an incline across trolley tracks near where one of the paddlewheel riverboats frequented by tourists sits docked and idle. There are no tourists yet. I point to the ground we were standing on, the relative height of the water to the surrounding French Quarter and said, “This is a levee.” Oh,” she replied, “I thought it was a place for tourists to walk.” We had a brief conversation about what happened to the failed levees and return to the car for our drive to the neighborhoods adjoining the Quarter. It is a quick trip and a route roughly followed by a jazz funeral we happened on the last time my wife and I were here together. Passing under U.S. 90, we pass a beached boat next to a gas pump – was this the action of the two floods or did it run out of gas and/or water - and enter the increasingly familiar dead silence of ravaged neighborhoods. First there are very nice homes, some boarded up, one with signs reading “_____ FEMA; ____ [Governor] Blanco;” “We’ve gone to Texas,” and one smaller one that reads, “Please do not help us anymore, Thanks.” As we progress deeper into the neighborhood, the houses decline from middle-class to poor. My friend comments about how much trash has been removed from the curbs. It turns out she has been here before. I am struck by the streets lined with cars, just like one would expect to see in any neighborhood except that every last one is dead – drowned in the flood, windows coated in some mysterious substance. The houses too display their fate by the height of the water line – first three feet then, four and five and six feet. Each one is marked by a red or black spray painted x with symbols and numbers in each quadrant indicating who searched the house, when, the number of dead humans and the number of dead animals found in them. At certain businesses, those secured behind steel bars, search and rescue teams simply cut through the outer walls to gain entry. On a telephone pole is stapled a lonely but hopeful sign advertising “mold removal” along with a telephone number. National Guard personnel cruising slowly down the street in their humvee eye us suspiciously, then move on without stopping. After all, what mischief could a couple of sixty-some things in their rented car be up to? Finally, my companion says simply, “I’ve seen enough. The people back home want to be able to get a feeling for what happened here, but pictures of ruined buildings can’t convey it. I’ll probably discard most of the ones I have.” So we proceed slowly back toward fairly certain parking at the hotel, past massive machinery pumping mold and poisonous air out of downtown buildings, All through the business district there are huge cranes replacing missing glass, large trailer-mounted generators, and row on row of the largest trash containers one can rent. Often sidewalks and even whole sides of boulevards are blocked by machinery, barricades and yellow tape. It does not look like this situation will be changing soon. The police are back in force, not only those from New Orleans, but from cities and towns all over the country. Often on city streets and interstates, you pass National Guard patrols and convoys. These troops, many of whom are from engineering battalions, have been back from Afghanistan for less than a year patrol neighborhoods and provide security at the Red Cross shelters throughout the region. One such unit came close the breaking point earlier in the week when shelter residents supposedly going to inspect a new FEMA trailer park were denied re-entry into the shelter after finding their trailers had no source of groceries and no water or sewage hook ups. The squad of National Guard soldiers were instructed to use their vehicles to block the bus from re-entering shelter property. The residents on the bus were their people after all. After tense and emotional negotiations, a compromise was reached that allowed the soldiers to leave for a bit on some “official business,” and open the property again. There is growing pressure to close the remaining shelters. The Red Cross has never had to provide services so long after a disaster. The faces of staff members are drawn and the stress inherited from previous workers and lived under since early September clearly shows. Shelter residents too show the strain of living packed together in gymnasiums and churches in strange towns. © Jim Rule, October, 2005 ********************************************************* News Release Date: September 9, 2005 900,000 Youth Planned Suicides During Major Depression Suicide Prevention Hotline Available For Help The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today released data showing that approximately 900,000 youth had made a plan to commit suicide during their worst or most recent episode of major depression, and 712,000 attempted suicide during such an episode of depression. The new data contained in a special report on youth ages 12-17 were announced today by SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie at the Suicide Prevention Action Network USA’s (SPAN USA) 10 the Anniversary National Awareness Event in Arlington, Va. The data are extracted from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which asked youth ages 12-17 about symptoms of depression, including thoughts about death or suicide. The report defines major depressive episode as a period of at least two weeks in which a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities and had at least five of the nine symptoms of depression described in the psychiatrists’ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders –Fourth Edition (DSM-IV). In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Curie also announced a new effort to reach out to the media to promote the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK. The Lifeline and its website www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org, launched last December, link to a network of local crisis centers located in communities across the country that are committed to suicide prevention. Callers to the hotline will receive suicide prevention counseling from trained staff at the closest certified crisis center in the network. The new materials available on the web will assist local crisis centers in their efforts to reach out to the media to raise awareness about suicide and the national hotline. SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie said, “Suicide is a preventable tragedy. It is a thief that sets no boundaries and seeks victims of all ages; from all racial, religious, ethnic and multi-ethnic groups; across all socio-economic divides; and within urban and rural communities nationwide. As part of our strategy to prevent suicide, President Bush signed into law the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act for youth suicide prevention programs, and as a result, very soon SAMHSA will be awarding grants to several communities to strengthen our prevention efforts.” Curie added, “In response to Katrina, SAMHSA has activated its disaster response plan for the Lifeline to ensure all calls are answered . In addition, information on the Lifeline is being distributed in the impacted areas through established national, state and local networks to help make the number widely available and accessible to those in need.” The special report, “Suicidal Thoughts among Youths Aged 12-17 with Major Depressive Episode” found that over 7 percent of youth ages 12-17, 1.8 million youth, had thought about killing themselves during their worst or most recent episode of major depression. The data show that about 3.5 million youth ages 12-17, 14 percent, had experienced at least one episode of major depression in their lifetimes. Almost 20 percent of females in this age group and 8.5 percent of males had at least one of these depressive episodes. Rates of major depressive episodes in their lifetimes were similar among racial and ethnic groups and increased with age. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health is an annual survey of close to 70,000 people. The survey collects information from residents of households, residents of non-institutionalized group quarters and civilians living on military bases. The 2004 survey included responses from 22,301 youth ages 12 to 17 of whom 3,179 were classified as having a major depressive episode in their lifetimes. The report is available on the web at www.oas.samhsa.gov. SAMHSA, is a public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness of the nation’s substance abuse prevention, addictions, treatment, and mental health services delivery system. SAMHSA is An Agency of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Service (10/10/05) ********************************************************* Rev. Jennie Thomas I am the head of Pastoral Care at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. We are wanting to send an emailed interfaith prayer to our employees each day. I was wondering if I could get some chaplains from around the country to write prayers for us during our time of recovery which we can send to our employees. Prayers can be sent to JnThomas@ochsner.org. Thank you (9/24/05) ********************************************************* Urgent help needed for Katrina Assistance Project through Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Complete information: http://www.wcikatrinahelp.com (9/23/05) ********************************************************* Hurricane Relief Update Due to the overwhelming need for emergency mental health services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the American Red Cross is temporarily waiving its requirement of ARC Disaster Mental Health Certification for counselors holding the NCC and NCSC credentials. As long as you are an NCC, NCSC or LPC, the Red Cross will consider your application. If you are interested in volunteering with the ARC in the Gulf Coast region and can commit to time away from your normal schedule, we urge you to download and complete the following forms and submit them directly to the American Red Cross via fax to (202) 303-0233. Remember, even though the forms indicate that DSHR certification is required, it is not necessary during this time of crisis. However, we would like to encourage you to consider enrolling in Red Cross DSHR training in the future so that those of you willing to continue to assist the ARC will be able to do so at any time. Future updates will be posted to this site as we receive them. NBCC thanks you for your wiliness to provide desperately needed mental health services to the victims of Katrina. Letter to Mental Health Professionals Due to overwhelming response you may experience some difficulty when faxing your information. Please keep trying, your help is desperately needed. NBCC is temporarily suspending mail to NCCs in areas of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana that are designated as "closed" by the postal service. (9/22/05) ********************************************************* Jackson is Central Mississippi so we missed the category 4, only got the #1 category, sustained 60 and gusts to 90. From noon Monday till Tues morning and I cannot imagine what it was like for those on the coast. We have not had power since Monday to this hour so we have missed the T.V. images, but have listened on PBS. Untold destruction like perhaps this nation has never seen. We are quiet here in the office today but our COO came over today and said "prepare for the aftermath" re counseling. Clinically we call it PTSD. Thank you for your concern. Believe me it helps to know that others are mindful of our plight and that you are such support, always! Sincerely, *********************************************************
Care and Counseling Center in the midst of Hurricane Katrina Response As our country and the world assess Katrina’s damage and needs in the aftermath of what President Bush has called “the worst natural disaster in the history of our country”, Care and Counseling Center of Georgia is already involved:
In all of these settings and more, CCCG is proactively carrying out its mission of providing “healing, wholeness, and hope”. When we began to look more deeply into the needs of the communities which surround us, three years ago, and to partner with various not for profits, we had no idea that we would find ourselves in the midst of recovery efforts for victims of such a tragedy. Yet this is what happens when the focus is on addressing the vital and deep personal, relational, spiritual, and emotional dilemmas of persons whose lives are in jeopardy and distress. Our movement out into the community and churches to offer pastoral caring skills in the contexts where people experience happiness and sorrow, joy and pain, acquisition and grief loss, life and death has involved us in regional, national, and global caring. We are proud and excited to be connected to the world in this way and to be ready and able to offer our pastoral gifts in new and unexpected ways when the need arises. Thanks for your support which enables us to do this!
********************************************************* Is AAPC making any plans for sending volunteer counselors down to LA and MS? I understand that such assistance is not urgent, but more to be needed in the weeks ahead. But I'd be interested in volunteering a week or two of my time if such an effort gets underway. I am an AACP Diplomate and that I did counseling and support work in Manhattan following both the WTC bombing in 1993 and the WTC bombing on 9/11. Yours, Fred Turpin ********************************************************* We count ourselves very fortunate. The tree we lost and the damage it did to our fence is nothing compared to what so many others have had to face. Both of us are extremely involved through our church in efforts to be available to and provide assistance for those in need. As the volunteer Director of Pastoral Care for our Church I work with a number of Pastoral Care Associates who make themselves available to those in need of spiritual counseling as a result of trauma experienced as a result of the hurricane. Penny, as Congregational President also has her hands full. If yesterday and today are any example, of what is in store in terms of demand for housing and care, things are going to be very hectic. One action our Church has taken among many that might interest AAPC'ers is making our Pastoral Care Associates available for spiritual consultation to any who ask for it. Thanks ********************************************************* Arthur Kirby here, Fellow with AAPC. We are currently housing over 4,000 people in our city. I have been working with both the Red Cross and Salvation Army. For the most part the folks of our city are welcoming and helping in the most giving ways. The bulk of the victims we have are from New Orleans in the uptown area. They are very poor people and most could not have left if they had choosen to do so without the city organizing buses to get them out before the storm. Many are saying they will never return. More later. Arthur G. Kirby II, MS., MDIV. 210-326-4068 ********************************************************* Praise God. Sue Cardwell's family all got out, and they are all well. Thank you for your prayers. What a gift! What a relief! She and Walter are living with his mental dimentia. She has a lot on her broad shoulders at this time. We continue to pray for all those who are still trapped, and for those who have lost so much. We continue to pray that our country rise up to positively address long standing issues that have been uncovered. Help us to move beyond politicism, into our common humanity, and on with rebuilding our boundaries. May Pastoral Counselors unite in heart and in mind, and in Spirit to honor our strengths and to use them well, each of us doing what each is called to do, with wisdom, grace, and fortitude. Greetings to all. In and by the grace of God, ********************************************************* It is good to hear that Earle and Barry are safe and sound! Is there news on how other colleagues are doing? I am thinking about Jim Hightower and Mike Goote to name just two. I have tried to e-mail Jim, but have gotten no response. It seems that our colleagues on and near the coast may need much support of many kinds for a period of time. Dale Kuhn ********************************************************* A podcast program called griefcast.com is now available at www.griefcast.com It is hosted by Grief Psychologist J. Shep Jeffreys, Ed.D., C.T. - Pastoral Counseling faculty, Loyola College in Maryland. Podcast #2 focuses on grief in the aftermath of Katrina and features Dr. Ellen Zinner, former President of the Association For Death Education and Counseling. The program discusses how to respond to survivors. Next griefcast program will deal with how people who lost loved ones to the 911 attacks have been able to reclaim some life and healing. Podcast #1 dealt with parental grief and features interviews with bereaved parents and Harold Ivan Smith, D.Min, author, speaker and death educator. Dr. Jeffreys is author of "Helping Grieving People–When Tears Are Not enough: A Handbook For Care Providers." Shep Jeffreys, Ed.D., C.T. ********************************************************* My prayers are with all hurricane victims and their families. I used to take youth groups to Back Bay Mission in Biloxi in the 70’s and 80’s for work camps. I saw the aftermath of hurricane Camille while there and saddened that the people in those areas must once again face this devastating experience. Our church here in Burlington, Colorado is preparing a semi load of supplies to go there – or Texas – where ever the need is greatest, and I am glad to be personally available as needed for a week to ten days. Ralph S. Datema, D.Min. LMFT, Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. ********************************************************* I was a residence during the 9/11/01 terror attack. Being a therapist/psychologist in New York I had opportunity under the federal government "Liberty Program" I counseled families and victims. I am available to aid the victims in Gulf/Louisiana Disaster. I am also a licensed missionary/minister and have done mission work in remote areas home and abroad. Respectful, Dr. B. Brown ********************************************************* Thank you and God Bless you in your efforts. My Aunt Beverly Carter was a cancer patient at Lindy Boggs Medical Facility. She was evacuated out on Friday 8-26-05. We have been unable to locate which hospital facility she was transfered to. If any members working at the hospital of the evacuees could share this information and email me or call I would be gratefully appreciated. My name is Pearl Sullivan and I am a student member who recently graduated from Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. Cell 914-573-9242 or email address pms132001@yahoo.com. God bless all of you for caring when it looks like nothing can be done to help. I know that God is in the middle of all of this and my hope and faith is in Him. Thank You Pearl Sullivan Trust in the Lord and Do Good UPDATE: Ms. Carter found in San Antonio, her daughter is on her way to get her. ********************************************************* Hi, This is Pastor Jeff Davis and New Way Christian Center. We want you to know that we have you in our prayers and will be doing our part to help you in this time of crisis. We are partnering with other churches and outreach efforts to send whatever support we can for you during this time. When I first heard the news it was very disheartening. But know that God has his hand in all this and he will see all of you through this. Blessings Pastor Jeff Davis www.newwayministry.org ********************************************************* I was notified today that I will be the Critical Incident Stress Management, Forward Team Chief for Air Force Special Operations Command. So far hundreds of lives have been saved. A chaplain assistant, a psychologist, and I will initially form the team. If I get a chance I may drop in on Barry Click the previous poster on this forum. God Bless ********************************************************* I am a clinical fellow living in Oklahoma City. I worked with some forty persons impacted by the OKC bombing, went to Kenya to provide training for clergy and medical personnel expecting to work with bombing victims there in 1998, did additional training with the Academy of Traumatology, was deployed to Manhattan the last week in September, 2001 and made some twelve trips back to New York and New Jersey to provide training, consultation and crisis intervention services there. I am awed by the overwhelming and far-reaching impact of Katrina and its aftermath. I scheduled in July before vacationing both a Compassion Fatigue workshop on October 14 and a Field Traumatology workshop on November 4-5 here in OKC, with no anticipation of this week's event. If any AAPC member or other professional is interested, I'll glad to provide additional details. Our approach through the Oklahoma Traumatology Institute has been to learn from the persons impacted by these traumatic events, as well as from others who have specialized in trauma work, in order to be able to share with others these lessons and continue to learn together. We in AAPC are better prepared than some others to respond to the anguish and despair often inherent in these contexts because of our familiarity with ambiguity and the ability to maintain and personify hope in a context of terror and devastating loss. Jay Martin, D.Min., LMFT ********************************************************* Our Disaster Response Team of Indian Nations Presbytery met this morning to prepare our small part of the response to the "tens of thousands" of "refugees' that are expected to move into our area in the next few days. We are seeking to coordinate with all manner of emergency and social services to provide the best response possible for those coming into our area. We are considering ourselves in a receiving mode because of the close proximity to the impact and the extreme enormity of the problem. In El Reno, where I serve a Pastor of a Presbyterian Church and with Inner Peace Pastoral Counseling, we met this afternoon to prepare to receive families whom we expect to come into our area. Although the point of impact in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is experiencing the devastation first hand, those of us in surrounding states are gearing up for the massive impact of this most horrendous disaster. Our prayers are for all affected. The Presbyterian Church, USA has designated "counselors" as being among the first of those needed in responding to this disaster. Mark D. Heaney ********************************************************* I pastored a small parish in New Orleans in the 1970s and also did my CPE in Baptist hospital in the Uptown area.I have continued to maintain some connection with former parishioners/friends. By all accounts, the trauma and devastation is worse than even what the media has thus far been able to report. After the obvious battle of getting people into safe living conditions, having food and shelter, the need to address the spiritual/emotional needs will be overwhelming. I worry about our professional colleagues who will likely need the same professional care as all other victims...we are all the same... My prayers are with you...to all in this massive region. I assume the AAPC folks in the surrounding cities in which refugees are being located will coordinate with other helping agencies/professionals. Should others of us offer to come and be available to help with the load? I notice the NASWs and AAMFT seem to be putting together teams to also coordinate with the Red Cross. Do we in AAPC have ways to join these efforts? We really do need each other... Royce Please visit my website: www.LivingWithMeaning.com D. Royce Fitts, D.Min. voice:308.436.2224 ********************************************************* We speak the LORD'S grace, comfort and wisdom into the hearts of all affected. We know the LORD will answer all the prayers for their safety, care and needs. We will continue in prayers for them in Jesus' name. Wilhelmina Kalu ********************************************************* AAPC Colleague, Jim Hightower and family from New Orleans are safe and with family. ********************************************************* Dear Colleagues - Nedra and I have been vitally concerned about the devastation throughout the Gulf region, especially our colleagues in New Orleans. On top of personal calls to the area, we've both been active in the relief networks here in Virginia through the state VOAD and the Richmond chapter of the Red Cross. When the Program Planning Committee meets next week we will be considering ways to assist our affected members as well as shape the program to reflect the clinical aftermath and systemic concerns raised by Hurricane Katrina. As we try to understand the scope of this catastrophe and respond to the wider systemic concerns, it will be helpful for our members to read the article at this link: http://www.blackpressusa.com/News/Article.asp?SID=3&Title=Hot+Stories&NewsID=4744 Donald Denton ********************************************************* My prayers are with all those who have suffered through this unimaginable tragedy. If AAPC joins in the efforts to provide counseling and support to those touched by Katrina, please place me on a volunteer list. I am available for one or two weeks as I believe others may be from Christian Theological Seminary Counseling Center. In Prayer and Hope, Cathy Hubbard, D.Min, M.Div. ********************************************************* Dear Friends, My first step was to assist in getting my 72 year old aunt on oxygen and her mentally retarded daughter out of New Orleans. They went to Lafayette where my brother and his wife, who own Gator's Cove Restaurant, helped until her children could get her settled in an apartment in Houston. It was a few days before I heard again from my cousin from New Orleans who "rode her out" since he is a State Farm insurance adjustor. He is in a RV and working hard. At the Red Cross, we raised two million dollars in the first two days. It will be a drop in the bucket. While I answered phones, I was aware of people dying from dehydration. I personally called everyone in the AAPC directory in areas affected. Obviously, I could not get through in many cases, but in several instances I was able to leave messages and I have had a few return calls. My family has lived in New Orleans for 9 generations. I know the people and the culture well, and I know the following. African American families were intentionally separated during the times of slavery and that this crisis is awakening those genetic memories. The French were forcibly removed from Canada by the British, and those genetic memories are coming to life. The current trauma is unspeakable and political debates are not helping. And, I know all levels of leadership need assessment and improvement. I know that the best comes from adversity and struggle - eventually. It does not help to look wise when another is suffering. Rolling up one’s sleeves and doing the small things can make a difference. The most touching call I had at the Red Cross was from a small boy's mother who had walked the length of a long street in Richmond collecting coins from house to house. They had no car and wanted to know how they could get the money to the headquarters. I am ashamed to say that I did not think to offer to pick it up. I will go to New Orleans again. The music will be even better and, while it will be hard to improve on the food, it will be a joy again. People will tell their stories, because no one can tell a story like a Cajun or a Creole. I know the city, whose king is Gabriel and whose queen is Evangline as immortalized by Longfellow, yet based on a true story, will be critical to the survival of this country - again. Nedra Voorhies ********************************************************* Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues - I started writing these psalms in 1997. As you can see, I've been doing a whole bunch of penitence. Anyway, this is my response to the situation and it may be helpful to you. Donald D. Denton, Jr., D.Min., LPC, LMFT
Penitential Psalm CXXIII We remain a prideful people "What if Hurricane Ivan had struck New Orleans?" We have been warned too often "I can make a decision in 24 hours!" We were blasé about our lives "This is just a down payment on the help!" Amen! Donald D. Denton ********************************************************* Kanawha Pastoral Counseling Center KPCC Staff Counselors Reach Out to Katrina Survivors Five KPCC staff counselors volunteered to help with the mental health/emotional trauma relief needs of 350 survivors from New Orleans, who where flown to WV this past week. Rev. Perry James made an especially good connection with predominantly African-American survivor population. He has gone back to Camp Dawson for an extended period. Thank you all for your amazing response!
********************************************************* |
Rev. Debbie Higginbotham, Sr. Rosie Hefner, Dr Judith WIlkinson, Rev. Perry James, and Rev. Sky Kershner at Camp Dawson
Site Map | Contact Us | ©2005 American Association of Pastoral Counselors