Clinical Planning and Service Delivery in Disaster Behavioral Health

Course overview

To promote resilience and assess disaster survivors for additional behavioral health support needs, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have agencies, offices, and programs that promote the mental health and well-being of people impacted by disaster. Other executive departments, including the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice under the Attorney General, also administer programs to support those impacted by a disaster or traumatic event. To make this guidance document as helpful as possible to your specific planning role, we will highlight both how things fit together and where you might fit within the big picture. Because the picture is so big, and growing, we will aim to look at disaster behavioral health (DBH) efforts throughout the United States, with the intent of piecing together disparate approaches and efforts into a more complete summary.