Even before Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, I wondered how psychologists would respond to this tragedy. I recalled how our profession responded to the Tsunami in Asia and felt confident that psychologists would once again take action to relieve the suffering of those affected. Like others, I was shocked by the devastation of the hurricane and the images and stories appearing in the media. I realized that I could take responsibility, not sit back quietly waiting for others to take action, and I could begin a dialogue about the effects of the hurricane and potential ways that psychologists could be of assistance.

My first action was to post a message on the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP) listserv asking if the Executive Council of Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) had discussed a plan to offer help to the victims of the hurricane and the counseling programs in the region. It also sparked a decision by Roberta Nutt (President, Division 17) and Nadya Fouad (President, CCPTP) to form a “Hurricane Relief and Disaster Response Special Task Force” (STF). Seventeen people agreed to serve on this Task Force and Robert Lent (University of Maryland) and I agreed to co-chair this group. 

Initially, the mission of the STF was to find ways to provide “academic refuge” for students and faculty in counseling psychology programs that had been disrupted by Katrina, for example, temporarily relocating them to other universities. Through postings on different listservs and telephone conversations, over 25 counseling psychology programs around the United States quickly agreed to offer placements to such students.

The STF initiated dialogue with the American Counseling Association and APPIC to work collaboratively to assist those in need, including doctoral interns in the affected region. The STF also disseminated information from the APA and the American Red Cross (ARC) to the CCPTP and Division 17, 13, 8, and 27 listservs and it encouraged psychologists to volunteer with the ARC to provide mental health services to persons and communities in the affected area and to dislocated persons residing in other parts of the United States.

Due to their geographical location, some of the STF members volunteered to perform hurricane disaster relief work. Others from around the USA took small groups of their counseling psychology graduate students to affected areas to participate on ARC mental health teams.  Many other counseling psychologists and graduate students, not on the STF, also volunteered their time to the relief effort.  

Additionally, the STF initiated a webpage devoted to sharing information relevant to the relief effort. This page is located at www.div17.org. Further, a discussion board was launched to facilitate dialogue and the sharing of information among counseling psychologists and students.  The STF also generated a list of 13 policy recommendations (visit www.div17.org) that were shared with the U.S. Senate.

There are still many more opportunities for psychologists and graduate students to provide services to those affected by Hurricane Katrina, Rita, and now Wilma. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to help address the needs of those affected by the hurricanes. I also encourage you to share any resources and/or information about your experiences, opinions, expertise, etc. with all of us through various APA listservs, the Division 13 and 17 websites, at conferences, and/or in publications. There is much potential to learn from these tragedies and how to strengthen the psychology profession’s ability to respond to future disaster relief efforts. At the very least, various Divisions of APA (e.g., 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 27) should begin to discuss a collaborative effort to respond to such disasters. Perhaps, it is time to form a disaster mental health task force of representatives from these Divisions.

To determine how members of Division 13 viewed the efforts of psychology to respond to the hurricanes, I constructed a very brief survey. I had hoped to administer this survey to a few people, but was only able to secure one response. What follows are the responses of Stewart Cooper, Ph.D., ABPP (Director of Counseling Services, Valparaiso University).

Were you involved in any activities related to assisting with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and/or Rita? If so, what did you do? 
Cooper: I collected information from APA in general, the Division 17 Section on University and College Counseling Centers (UCCC), and my University and passed that on to my staff. I kept current with the efforts of Division 13 but took no action on the options raised.

In your opinion, how well prepared was APA, Division 13, and Division 17 when responding to these Hurricanes?
Cooper: I don't know about any pre-preparation plans but several of the existing organizational structures and communication mechanisms were able to be used in fairly short order.

In your opinion, how effective was APA, Division 13, and Division 17 when responding to these Hurricanes?
Cooper: In general, I feel that APA in general and Division 13 in specific took some helpful steps. My guess is that Division 17 did as well, but I am less aware of that Division's efforts. Again, this is most likely due to my only being on the UCCC Section listserv.

What needs to be done in the future for APA, Division 13, and Division 17 to be better prepared to respond to large scale tragedies?
Cooper: Based on learning from past tragedies, natural or man-made, develop a set of principles and organizational processes that can be brought to bear to facilitate communications, decision-making, and actions.