Citation

Norris FH, Bellamy ND. Adm. Policy Ment. Health 2009; 36(3): 165-175.

Affiliation

National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD), VAMC (116D), 215 North Main Street, White River Junction, VT, 05009, USA, fran.norris@dartmouth.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10488-009-0217-z

PMID

19365722

Abstract

Hurricane Katrina created the largest population of internally displaced persons in the history of the United States. Exceptions to Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) usual eligibility requirements allowed states from across the nation to apply for Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program (CCP) grants to provide services to evacuees. Over a 16-month period, crisis counselors documented 1.2 million individual and group encounters across 19 CCPs. Most encounters (936,000, 80%) occurred in Presidential disaster-declared areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but many (237,000, 20%) occurred in 16 smaller "undeclared" programs across the country. Programs showed excellent reach relative to external benchmarks provided by FEMA registrations for individual assistance and population characteristics. Programs varied widely in service mix and intensity. The declared programs reached more people, but the undeclared programs provided more intensive services to fewer people with higher needs.

Language: en