NMHA's Blueprint for Responding to Public Mental Health Needs in Times of Crisis

Our SEMA provides trainings on all sorts of disaster response topics for FREE. I don't know if other states offer the same thing, but these trainings are 2-3 days in length and held in different regions to make it more convenient for people to attend. They are also willing to provide trainings for groups for no charge (other than perhaps travel expenses) on many topics. I know that we are looking into using them to teach the mh folks the incident command structure for sure and then maybe even do some other disaster response trainings. If this is something that other states do, it would definitely be worth investigating, I think. One thing I have really figured out is that mh people and emergency response are from totally different cultures. One is touchy feely and the other is very military. It is good to bring the two together before the disaster strikes!

For more information about the Blueprint pilot project, please contact the NMHA Resource Center at 1-800-969-6642 or email us. To order a Blueprint for Responding to Public Mental Health Needs in Times of Crisis manual, visit www.nmha.org/bookstore or order via phone by calling NMHA's publication office: 703-838-7531.

National Mental Health Association
2001 N. Beauregard Street, 12th Floor
Alexandria, VA 22311
Phone 703/684-7722
Fax 703/684-5968
Mental Health Resource Center 800/969-NMHA
TTY Line 800/433-5959