Hurricane Harvey Recovery Funder Briefing

Hurricane Harvey Recovery Funder Briefing

Monday, April 23, 2018

2:00pm Central

The bi-weekly briefings are hosted by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and sponsored by The Simmons Foundation. Their intentions are two:

To provide regular updates on the recovery with special attention to community needs and subject matter experts to inform donors; and

To allow funders to report on their own organizational initiatives with opportunities to receive and ask questions of other funders present for the briefing.

Updates

The briefing began with news of recovery activity since the prior briefing:

• Hurricane Preparedness Week (May 7-13); educational and promotional materials can be found at:

• George Foundation, CDP’s Hurricane Harvey Recovery Fund, RebuildTX, Episcopal Health Foundation, United Way and others are meeting this week in Fort Bend/Wharton County to discuss gaps and opportunities there.
• Funders are also collaborating on a meeting/training for long-term recovery groups to be held in Galveston in June.
• FEMA’s Regional Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMAT) are prepping for the upcoming hurricane season, especially in areas still recovering or responding to last season’s storms. It goes without saying that the stress level for this season is high across the nation as a whole.

Focus: Mental and Behavioral Health

The guests for this briefing were:

• Dr. Asim Shah, Professor & Executive Vice Chair, Menninger Department of Psychiatryat Baylor College of Medicine, Chief of Psychiatry for Ben Taub Hospital/Harris Health System and the Director of Community Behavioral Health Program for Harris Health System, the largest outpatient mental health provider in Harris County, with over 100,000 visits a year. He presents widely on stress and depression.
• Dr. Julie Kaplow, Director, The Trauma and Grief Center atTexas Children's Hospital and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics/Psychology Section at Baylor College of Medicine. The Trauma and Grief Center sees over 400,000 children a year. She also directs the Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program.

Dr. Shah’s remarks focused on signs or signals that family, friends or co-workers might detect as indicator that a person had experienced injurious trauma from a disaster. He divided symptoms into two categories: 1) what happens immediately after a disaster when sadness, depression, and sleeplessness might be in evidence; and 2) PTSD, which takes a month to appear, when anxiety worsens, and financial stresses set in.

Persons may appear to be down, losing interest in things, worrying about things, experiencing flashbacks of the trauma, all of which result in impaired functioning. It is recommended that friends and family members get the attention of a health care professional. Children may be quite different– they are very sensitive – they don’t say anything and so are often ignored, as early warning signs might be more subtle than adults.

There is a need to follow up with people for a long time. Studies after Katrina demonstrated that survivors of the hurricane were still suffering after four years. Symptoms may lastyears or may be 6-9-12 months in duration; there is no clear boundary for how long symptoms last.

The number one barrier to seeking help is not understanding the severity of the situation or thinking that it is all normal. Sometimes the distinction between what is normal and what is pathology is if a person can do what he or she was doing before normally and now is unable to do it. Survivors may gain a lot from one visit. Do not ignore these symptoms because they can multiply.

If there is a suspicion of suicide and the person is uncooperative about seeking help, that is a serious complication. Depression has about 15-20% chance of suicide. After a disaster event, there can be intense feelings of loss and not much sense of the future. It is best to address this at the beginning to avoid bad outcomes.

There are online resources and call centers such as the Disaster Distress Helpline.Many agencies that can help in addition to primary care physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Social support from neighbors, faith communities, and numerous other venues is also important.

In emergency situations, hospitals and clinics do not require any documentation of insurance or citizenship, but in non-emergency situations or elective appointments, documentation will be requested.

A number of school districts have been trained to be on the lookout for children and youth who may need support, there are clinics in homeless shelters and case workers that can go directly to a person in need (although that is a rarity). Grants for mental and behavioral health need to be renewable or longer in term to extend for 3-5 years.

Dr. Kaplow’s presentation appears in the accompanying slides, along with her contact information.

Up Next

Our next briefing, May 7, 2pm central, will feature Katrina Durbak from Housing and Urban Development and Diane Yentel from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.