Crisis Emotional Care Team Expansion
An important part of achieving our mission is supporting emotional resilience within communities following disasters, emergencies, or localized crisis events. With the country only just beginning to understand the long-term mental health implications from the COVID-19 pandemic, Vibrant is broadening the reach of our Crisis Emotional Care Team to ensure individuals and communities across America have the healing tools and resources they need to recover.
The Crisis Emotional Care Team was created in 2019 when Vibrant Emotional Health and Disaster Psychiatry Outreach (DPO) joined forces. For nearly 20 years, DPO mobilized psychiatrists to provide volunteer mental health services following large-scale disasters. Merging with Vibrant brought a stronger opportunity to impact more lives. Through this partnership, Vibrant seeks to expand the DPO service model by providing emotional support to individuals and communities who are experiencing local traumatic events in addition to wide-reaching disasters.
With a grant from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, Vibrant is embarking on a major national expansion of the volunteer team to recruit a larger cadre of mental health professionals who are active across all 50 states and the US territories from around the country. The Crisis Emotional Care Team will provide training before and after traumatic events to help organizations and communities understand their emotional impact. National expansion will allow us to provide local volunteers to help those in their own communities or regions, but it will also allow us to tailor our response based on the specific circumstances for which the team is mobilized. Most importantly, the team will empower community members with how they can support each other in their recovery.
The Crisis Emotional Care Team is currently active and providing in-person support to those impacted by COVID-19 in New York City, and in other locations across the U.S. through the virtual deployment of its existing volunteers. The team is working with individuals to help them marshal their own coping strategies to manage the stress and anxiety associated with social distancing, job loss, and other challenges associated with the pandemic. Knowing that these issues may be ongoing, the team is offering individuals new coping skills that promote wellness in restricted environments, allowing them to find emotional balance even when there is still an ongoing public health risk, and where they may be living with the anxieties of a second wave in their areas.
If you are a qualified mental health provider and want to join our Crisis Emotional Care Team, or you would like to request a training or offer support following a crisis event, please contact Program Director, Amy Carol Dominguez ([email protected]) or Lisa Furst ([email protected]) Assistant Vice President, Center for Policy, Advocacy, and Education.
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