For the past four years, at the request of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, I have been developing trainings for mental health professionals in the area of disaster related psychological services.  During the acute phase of a disaster, i.e. what Faberow calls the Heroic and Honeymoon phases, the treatment methodology of choice is called Psychological First Aid (PFA).  The PFA Field Operations Guide was first published in the fall of 2005 by the National Center for PTSD.  The Guide can be found here. 

PFA is made up of 8 Core Actions.  In later posts I’ll provide more information on these.  However, today, I want to talk about preparing to deliver PFA.  A disaster mental health worker needs to think about various considerations, personal, family, work, etc. before he or she decides to put themselves into harm’s way.    Likewise, the worker needs to consider what type of volunteer setting they wish to work in.  This pdf file outlines these concerns.