Additional Resources Text Only

Traumatic Incident Stress: Information for Emergency Response Workers. This 4-Page factsheet from the CDC and NIOSH details typical emotional responses to stress. (PDF)

Disaster Response and Recovery Handbook for Mental Health Workers. This 113-page manual by Diane Myers, R.N., M.S.N. covers key concepts, planning, outreach, training, response and recovery. (PDF)

Providers Guide to Quality and Culture. This is a 2-page introduction to the website of Management Sciences for Health, an group dedicated to assisting health care organizations throughout the U.S. with providing high-quality, culturally competent services to multi-ethnic populations. (PDF)

Developing Cultural Competence in Disaster Mental Health Programs. This 4-page fact sheet from SAMHSA outlines guiding principles and recommendations for cultural competence for disaster crisis counseling programs. (PDF)

Culturally Competent: Disaster Nursing. This 5-page fact sheet from MinorityNurse.com draws upon lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina to make recommendations for culturally competent disaster nursing care. (PDF)

Interpersonal Skills Promoting Cultural Sensitivity. This 4-page factsheet from Dartmouth Medical Libraries covers interpersonal skills promoting cultural sensitivity, information for physicians on cultures, languages, culturally specific patient information, key associations, and teaching tools for medical professionals. (PDF)

Standing Together: An Emergency Planning Guide for America’s Communities. This 114-page manual from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations addresses emergency management leadership and provides extensive community emergency planning guidelines. (PDF)

Disaster Psychiatry. This 2-page factsheet from the American Psychiatric Foundation provides a list of resources for psychiatrists treating disaster victims. (PDF)

Disaster Preparedness: Is Your Unit Ready? This 7-page, post-9/11 article from the website of the Nephrology Nursing Journal reviews various issues that may arise for nurses during a disaster and promotes pre-disaster planning for dialysis units. (PDF)

This 1-page factsheet from the American Academy of Pediatrics invites pediatricians to become part of the provider network for the AAP CHILDisaster Network, which provides lists of qualified pediatricians who have agreed to be on-call for participating organizations during a disaster. (PDF)

Stress Management for Patient and Physician. This 16-page article from the Canadian Journal of Continuing Medical Education lists 10 ways for reducing stress that can be practical, beneficial, and which even busy physicians can implement in their patients’ and their own lives. (PDF)

Common Responses to Trauma & Coping Strategies. This 3-page fact sheet from Patti Levin, LICSW, PsyD, covers the wide range of normal responses people may undergo following trauma. (PDF)

Coping with Disasters. This 3-page article from MedlinePlus.com provides a list of online resources for individuals coping with the aftereffects of trauma. (PDF)

Become a Survivor: How to Find Peace of Mind Following Life’s Traumas. This 3-page article by Dr. V. Alex Kehayan and Dr. Joseph C. Napoli, provides a list of coping strategies that individuals can pick and choose from according to their personal styles to help avoid long-term negative effects from experiencing trauma. (PDF)

Tips for Survivors: What to Expect in Your Personal, Family, Work and Personal Life. This 3-page fact sheet from the US Department of Health and Human Services provides useful tips for identifying and managing stress. (PDF)

Promoting the Health and Well-Being of Families During Difficult Times: Supporting Families following a Disaster. This 4-page fact sheet by Marta Stuart of the Arizona Cooperative Extension introduces information about symptoms of stress, and how individuals can effectively manage their stress. (PDF)

Selection, training and support of relief workers: an occupational health issue. This 5-page article by Maureen McCall and Peter Salama, published on the British Medical Journal’s website, reviews and calls for more research into stress-related illness in relief workers in complex humanitarian emergencies. (PDF)

Mental Health

Public Health

Tips for Managing and Preventing Stress: A Guide for Emergency and Public Safety Workers: This 3 page pdf by SAMHSA focuses mostly on stress prevention and management for individual public safety workers, as well as the role of the agency or organization in accomplishing the two aforementioned goals.

Critical Incidents: Myths and Realities: This article from PoliceOne.com does a nice job of dispelling some of the more common misconceptions about the psychological impact of disasters.

Disaster Mental Health Primer: Key Principles, Issues and Questions - essential information from the Centers for Disease Control’s Emergency Preparedness and Response division.

Sesame Street’s Initiatives on Emotional Wellbeing: covers how traumatic stress impacts children, emergency preparedness and recovering from a natural disaster. (PDF)

The American Red Cross: Preparing and Getting Trained has comprehensive information for the public on their website regarding disaster preparedness for home, workplace and schools. (PDF)

The American Red Cross site allows access to a wide range of preparedness information (PDF)

Georgia911.org: Emergencies and Threats: Georgia’s Disaster and Emergency website has an Emergencies and Threats section covering preparedness for and response to a comprehensive range of natural and man-made disasters and emergencies. (PDF)

The Georgia Public Safety Training Center offers classes to prepare public safety responders, supervisors and administrators for disaster operations. (PDF)

National Incident Management System Incident Command System (NIMS ICS) (PDF) conducts training that emphasizes coordination among agencies.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Emergency Management Institute (PDF) offers disaster training, both online (PDF) and at their facility (PDF).

FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute’s College List - links to colleges, universities and institutions offering accredited/certified emergency and disaster management courses and related graduate and undergraduate degree programs. (PDF)

Disaster Mental Health For Responders: Key Principles, Issues and Questions contains essential information from the Centers for Disease Control’s Emergency Preparedness and Response division. (PDF)

What Are the Traumatic Effects of Terrorism? is an informative fact sheet from the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (PDF)

Comprehensive list of FEMA online courses (PDF)

Brochure with information about FEMA’s independent study program (PDF)

List of articles on dispatcher stress from Headsets911.com (PDF)

Article from the American Psychological Association called Mind/Body/Health; The Effects of Traumatic Stress. It discusses how stress can impact all facets of one's existence. (PDF)

Article called Incidents Most Likely to Traumatize Rescue Workers. It discusses the issue in a way that is specific to public safety personnel (PDF).

PoliceOne.com’s list of physical and mental fitness articles (PDF)

Article from Firehouse.com called Firefighter’s Mental Health (PDF)

Stress Related issues/coping resources

National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder offers an abundance of educative resources that address some of the mental health concerns faced by public safety personnel. (PDF)

This resource is titled "A Guide to Managing Stress in Crisis Response Professions". It gives guidance for how to recognize common stress reactions as well as symptomatic ones. (PDF)

Here are some specific techniques for individual stress management (PDF)

This gives some of FEMA’s reccomendations for coping with disaster stress (PDF)

This site offers information on disaster stress in a way that is specific to public safety personnel. (PDF)

Here are some recommendations from FEMA on how public safety personnel can minimize the harmful effects of stress. It's called Tips for Managing and Preventing Stress: A Guide for Emergency and Disaster Response Workers. (PDF)

The Center for Disease Control offers their Disaster Mental Health Primer as an excellent guide for understanding how disasters impact individuals and communities.

This resource has some good self-care recommendations for public safety personnel. It's called Self Care for Crisis Response Professions. (PDF)

Discussion of secondary stress, titled Secondary stress and the professional helper is wonderfully comprehensive and informative. (PDF)

Discussion of compassion fatigue, which is a potential problem for anyone working with disaster victims. (PDF)

Resource is titled Working with Trauma Survivors: What Workers Need to Know. It has lots of good information for anyone working in the impacted environment. (PDF)

This article examines some of the difficulties that public safety personnel often face after disasters, and gives some suggestions for alleviating them. (PDF)

Collection of articles related to police, stress, and suicides. Some were written by mental health professionals who used to be cops.(PDF)

Cornell University conducted a study on stress and related issues among those NYC firefighters who were present during post-9-11-01 rescue/relief operations. Here is a discussion of the findings. (PDF)

This site examines stress among the various public safety fields. It does a good job of differentiating among the specific types of stress faced by each of the various public safety fields. (PDF)

This resource from the American Psychological Association gives recommendations for ways to build resilience. (PDF)

What is resilience? Here's a discussion of that question from the American Psychological Association. (PDF)

This is a case example of how psychological hardiness can be an asset during difficult times. (PDF)

The American Psychological Association talks about what past disasters have taught us about building resilience. (PDF)

Preparation

Family and Children

Understanding Yourself

Elders

Persons with Disabilities

Families and Children

Military

Resilience

Professionals

Families

School Counselors and Administrators

Teachers

Colleges and Universities

Mental Health

Families

Veterans of Wars

Healthcare

Mental Health

Public Health

Healthcare

Mental Health

Public Health