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How Therapists Can Truly Help After a Disaster

Curt and Katie chat about the impact of the recent Los Angeles wild fires on therapists, their clients, and communities. We explore the importance of self-assessment, responsible crisis response, and balancing personal care with providing support. From donating (and marketing) services ethically to understanding trauma timelines, Curt and Katie provide practical advice for therapists navigating community-wide disasters.

Transcript

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Show notes are created in collaboration with otter.ai and ChatGPT.

In this podcast episode we talk through how therapists can help during and after crises

Curt and Katie live in Los Angeles, which was recently ravaged by wild fires. We decided it would be important to reflect on our experience and provide support to other therapists seeking ways they may be able to help their own communities.

The Impact of the Los Angeles Fires on Therapists

  • Curt and Katie share our personal experiences with the Los Angeles fires, including concerns for loved ones and physical and emotional stress from the disaster.
  • We discuss the challenges of supporting friends, colleagues, and clients who have been affected by the fires while navigating our own needs.

“I think it was something where I felt like it was both chaotic and it also kind of slowed the world down for me a little bit. So, you know, kind of putting priorities in place and understanding what my own kind of personal needs were, as well as what I was trying to understand about the help that our community needs.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Self-Assessment and Prioritizing Personal Care during a Natural Disaster or Community Crisis

  • Therapists are encouraged to assess their capacity to provide support, ensuring they do not overextend themselves during a crisis.
  • Curt emphasizes radical acceptance and forgiveness for cancellations or temporary service disruptions caused by disasters.
  • Katie highlights the importance of therapists taking care of themselves before offering services, noting the potential for long-term impacts on both providers and clients.

How to Market Therapy during a crisis without feeling like an ambulance chaser

  • Curt and Katie stress the importance of donating services ethically, avoiding lead generation tactics or branding during a crisis.
  • They discuss reviewing scheduled marketing campaigns to ensure sensitivity to the current situation.
  • Therapists are encouraged to work with established organizations (like the Red Cross) to maximize the impact of their efforts.
  • Curt and Katie discuss the risks of using disasters to build personal brands and stress focusing solely on service and support.
  • They suggest volunteering with experienced organizations to avoid complications and maximize resources for those in need.

Recognizing Individual Needs and Trauma Timelines for disaster survivors

“The ways that people are going to show up with trauma and with grief is going to be incredibly creative…We have to be prepared for acknowledging that not everybody is going to be affected in the same way at the same time, and making assumptions that people are can oftentimes push people out of wanting those services. And so this is really a reminder to meet people where they’re at.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

  • Not all clients experience or process trauma in the same way; therapists must tailor their support to individual needs and stages of impact.
  • Curt shares insights from his experience supporting clients after the Boston Marathon bombing, emphasizing the importance of addressing varying levels of trauma severity.
  • Katie highlights the need for long-term care systems to address ongoing trauma responses.

How Therapists can balance Caretaking and Personal Needs during a disaster

  • Curt shares his experience of being overwhelmed by personal messages and work demands during the crisis.
  • Katie emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and giving oneself permission to focus on personal care.
  • Therapists are reminded that they are part of the crisis too and should ensure they meet their own needs before taking on the caretaker role.

Resources and Training for Therapists to Prepare for future disasters and crisis response

  • Curt and Katie recommend resources such as American Red Cross training and the Watch Duty app for staying informed and prepared during disasters.
  • They encourage therapists to proactively participate in ongoing training and to join organizations that provide support and experience in crisis response.

Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Ben’s article: Marketing therapy after disasters

Red Cross Training

Watch Duty (Google Play Store, Apple Store)

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:

Vulnerability, The News, and You: An Interview with Dr. Abigail Weissman

Shared Traumatic Experiences

Treating First Responders, An Interview with Yael Shuman, LMFT

topic: Crisis Management

 

Who we are:

Picture of Curt Widhalm, LMFT, co-host of the Modern Therapist's Survival Guide podcast; a nice young man with a glorious beard.Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Picture of Katie Vernoy, LMFT, co-host of the Modern Therapist's Survival Guide podcastKatie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:

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Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:

The Fifty-Minute Hour

Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:

Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group

Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that we do and the things that go on in our professions, the things that go on in our lives, and we are recording this in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires that have really affected our region, and things that I could even see outside my office window at one point, and so this is very near and dear to us from the top of the episode. For everybody who’s asking and has asked, we thank you for checking in on us and how we’ve been affected. We are both safe and out of harm’s way. We are some of the fortunate ones in our community, and we are supporting a lot of friends and loved ones and colleagues who have lost their homes, their businesses in this and the outpouring of support has been really wonderful. We’re not the only disaster that’s happened. There’s been hurricanes that have affected some of our therapists friends. This is not the last disaster that’s going to happen, and we know that as therapists, we want to come in, we want to help, we want to be able to help people deal with the traumas that come in dealing with this. And we wanted to speak about this in a couple of ways, and wanted to first give credit to our good friend, Dr. Ben Caldwell, with one of the blogs that he had written after a previous fire in the Los Angeles area, called ‘Marketing Therapy After Disasters.’ And we want to highlight the points that he makes, add a few of our own. But Katie, I know for me, during the week that we’ve been dealing with the fires up until this recording point, I have had to practice a lot of radical acceptance as far as: All right, things are changing. Things are changing for me. Things are changing for people who are in evacuation zones, people who are in zones adjacent to those. I immediately had sent out a text message last week the first sign of a fire in an area that was impacted by us, to my team that said, be extremely forgiving with cancelations to anybody and everybody this week, and that was just the first part of our response. You’re based a little bit further away from the immediate areas. What has this last week been like for you?

Katie Vernoy 2:53
There was so much that was unknown about where the fires were going to happen because of the winds, the the high fire, you know, the Red Flag Warning, all of those things. And so at first I wasn’t quite sure if I was out of the danger zone, right. And I have a family all over the Southland, and so there’s also a lot of my family members live in kind of the typical fire zones that actually didn’t get hit this last week. And so for me, I felt like I’ve been bracing and pretty worried. And of course, one of those people I was worried about was you, especially when we were recording and you’re like, looking out the window… and going, oh my goodness, please make sure you, I was like, look out the window, Curt, make sure the fire’s not coming over the ridge. And so I think there’s been a lot of just kind of the felt sense of physical sense of stress and worry and this constant awareness and I have asthma, and having all of the poor air quality and ash in the sky, it just felt very strange to be walking through this kind of apocalyptic landscape and knowing that people I care about deeply are/were potentially in harm’s way. And I think going through social media and reading all of all of the details about people who’ve lost their homes, it’s just been, it’s been a really hard week and a half. And it also feels weird, you know, I don’t think it’s survivor’s guilt, but just that I felt so far away from it once the air started clearing, and it was, you know, so removed. And so it just was something where I felt like I was observing from from a ways away. And and then I started, you know, because we have our Facebook group, and then I also have a group for therapists in the South Bay of Los Angeles, and folks that were starting to pop out and, how can I help? How can I help? How can I help? And really trying to think through how people were assessing their ability to help, what would be helpful, it became something where I started getting concerned that there were folks who were deeply in their own crisis wanting to step out and start taking care of clients in a different way. And, you know, each person’s got their own assessment to do, and we’ll talk about that. But I think it was something where I felt like it was both chaotic and it also kind of slowed the world down for me a little bit. So, you know, kind of putting priorities in place and understanding what my own kind of personal needs were, as well as what I was trying to understand about the help that our community needs, you know, and so it’s just, it’s been, it’s been a very strange week and a half, and I, and I think, where I’d like to start before we get into Ben’s article, is the self assessment part of when someone’s in or near a crisis like this, how they assess what they can do and maybe what would be most helpful for them to do. Because to me, it seems like a lot of folks immediately became helpers, and it was so beautiful to see. And I was doing an assessment, I was like, I can’t leave my house. The air quality was so poor, I was really feeling pretty helpless to do much. And so I think, with a typical caveat, everybody’s assessment is their own, and everybody has different situations, I think it is important to look at, if there’s a crisis happening, what are some good things for folks to consider when deciding how they can show up.

Curt Widhalm 6:27
I think we’ll hit on that point kind of throughout this episode, because there oftentimes is a desire to help out, and there are a number of ways that any kind of volunteering or donation can be wonderful and reinforce our role as part of the community of caregivers. But there are also ways that things can go wrong. And you know, I have seen many of the fire stations around me, many of the donation centers saying, please stop dropping off stuff. Please stop dropping off clothes. It’s getting in the way of being able to actually do the jobs that we need to do. We have other things that are higher priorities for us. So the same things can happen with us as mental health providers. Is it’s being able to look at what it is that we can actually provide and do it in ways that help to reinforce our roles, rather than doing something that can push people away who might actually need our services.

Katie Vernoy 7:39
Or could even be harmful. I think a lot of folks were oftentime want to go and do therapy, and we’ll have an episode with Red Cross, hopefully pretty soon. We were supposed to and they had to deploy the Los Angeles and so they needed to reschedule the interview. But to me, I think there’s a potential misunderstanding about what needs to happen in the direct aftermath, and I think with folks who are wanting to provide therapy, it’s not necessarily the need right from the beginning. And so there’s crisis response, there’s being present with folks. There’s a lot of stuff, and there’s specific training for that. So we won’t go into it here, but I think as part of that self assessment, to start out with, it’s what can you actually offer? Is it a listening ear, or would it be better to try to go and host somebody in your home, or make a meal or help with those donations and sorting and getting them back out into the world? And so I think it’s something where understanding your own capacity to even step into this, I think, is really important. And that that assessment needs to happen before you get too far into it, because there’s, as we’ll talk about, potentially some long, lasting impacts to the help that we can provide.

Curt Widhalm 8:52
So going to the first point in Ben’s article: number one, donate services without strings attached. And this is something that can feel really icky. It can make you sound like an ambulance chaser. If you say something like first four sessions free and then 50% off after that. It makes it sound just kind of like a lead generation sort of thing, like you’re just kind of coming in and trying to build your caseload, rather than actually prioritize the people who need help. Ben also linked to an article on, I think it’s pronounced koddi.com which the article title that he links to is ‘Managing Your Hotel Marketing After a Natural Disaster’, but there’s several points within this that also apply to therapists and some of the other recommendations are reviewing any other scheduled announcements or campaigns that you are putting out. Consider hitting the pause button on anything, check for sensitivity on things that are coming out. I know for some of the affected LA USD schools that ended up having to go to virtual learning for a couple of days until students who were in impacted schools could be placed in other schools, but some of the virtual learning lessons, one of the things that I saw posted in one of the parent groups was: describe a time that you watched a candle burn. So being able to review what is putting out there for the sensitivity to a situation is something that you want to do, especially if it’s something that you already have scheduled and isn’t sensitive there. Koddi.com also says closely monitors social media and reviews. People are turning to social media as a source of news. A lot of people were looking at Reddit updates. They were looking at Twitter/X whatever it’s called, updates. By the way, a big shout out to the app Watch Duty for…

Katie Vernoy 11:03
Yes.

Curt Widhalm 11:04
…they don’t give us any money, but man, it’s a 501, c3, that is definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re in any kind of fire prone areas. Special shout out to them. But use your social listening tools to be able to respond and manage yourself appropriately and being able to direct people to resources.

… 11:25
(Advertisement Break)

Katie Vernoy 11:28
I think a point about that and about the marketing, about what you’re offering, this speaks back to the self assessment. When you don’t have the bandwidth to check through your social media that’s already scheduled, or you don’t think that you can offer unlimited sessions, or even sessions without a possibility of some sort of financial compensation at some point, I think that goes to a bandwidth issue. And so this is why it’s really important in each stage, even if you feel like you should be helping or that you want to help, if you don’t have the bandwidth to do it, because you’re in your own crisis, it may come off ambulance chasing, or it may come off as really off key that you haven’t done all the due diligence to be present in that way. I think there is a space to be we’re in this crisis together. And I think the more that therapists who are able to get to that place of really reading the room and listening, those are the folks that need to be stepping forward, that that can do this effectively.

Curt Widhalm 12:38
And so really, to wrap up this first point is, what we’re talking about is, if you’re donating, make it a true donation. And if what you want to do is what your capacity is, is to be able to say, I’m offering four free sessions to three families affected by whatever event that this is, make it four sessions, and treatment plan that it’s four sessions and that, I think that that’s part of the clinical aspect of this, is by making it a true donation, plan for it to only take that amount of time, which is a much different style of therapy than many people are accustomed to, where it’s a lot more psycho education, it’s a lot more helping people to be able to contact and find other resources, to have a place to kind of talk through the immediacy of the feelings, and to be able to maybe make a mental health roadmap for themselves going forward. But it’s not going to be long in depth therapy in that short of a time frame. And if what you’re donating is wrapped up as that, but what you’re delivering is something else, you’re not really making it a true donation.

Katie Vernoy 13:56
And I think, have a purpose. If you, if you think that you can do some good in four sessions and offer that. If it’s something where you’ve done that, because that’s what you can afford to give, I think it doesn’t do what Curt is talking about, which is actually have a treatment plan for what you’re putting out there. Have a reason for what you’re offering, and be able to offer it completely free and clear.

Curt Widhalm 14:19
Ben’s second point, remember that individual needs differ.

Katie Vernoy 14:24
This is so important, and it’s obvious this is a therapy thing, right? Every client that comes in has different needs, and we need to be able to assess those needs. But I think it can be very hard, if we’re in a state of crisis ourselves, to do full assessments of those differential needs.

Curt Widhalm 14:44
The ways that people are going to show up with trauma and with grief is going to be incredibly creative. Those are two things that show up in very, very creative ways of very, very different times. And we have to be prepared for acknowledging that not everybody is going to be affected in the same way at the same time, and making assumptions that people are can oftentimes push people out of wanting those services. And so this is really a reminder to meet people where they’re at, and I will further say that people who are directly impacted, so in our case, for those people affected by the fires here in Los Angeles, the people who lost their homes and their businesses have much different needs than the people who are one or two neighborhoods over, and if you’re doing things like having group therapy in order to be able to help build some community, you’re going to want to really look at what your inclusion and exclusion criteria are to be able to address those needs. I had run a group after the Boston Marathon bombing for people who were running in the race and spectating. And when I had first started putting out, Hey, I’m doing this group for people, I had received a number of inquiries from other people in the running community who felt very affected by it as well and wanted to come and be able to process their feelings. And it was very, very important that those people and the people who were directly at the bombing site get different services, because the needs can become competing and invalidating, even within group members. So make sure that you’re looking at the timeline of where people’s needs might show up and be different, but also who you’re providing services to, and what those needs might end up being.

Katie Vernoy 16:42
And I wanted to expand on the point on timeline, because I think there’s, there’s the immediate crisis response, where, in truth, I think therapy isn’t necessarily appropriate for most folks. It’s crisis response, it’s, you know, the hierarchy of needs, it’s all of those things. And then people go through their process at different stages. And so being able to identify how you communicate, whether it’s a group or individual, who you’re supporting and who you’re best capable to support. I think we have different trainings. We have different skill sets. Some of us are more non directive, and that might be helpful at certain points. Some of us are more directive, that might be helpful at other points, and so it’s being very aware of how you show up in the room, and what’s going to be most helpful for the people who need services, and then also that they’re going to potentially need these services for longer term. Before we hit record, you were talking about the impact of offering a service that may extend beyond whatever the initial offering that you have available, and if you’ve done a sliding fee, or if you’ve done other things to help make that accessible, there is the potential that that would be a requirement going forward if they need longer term care. And so I think it’s it’s really assessing your capacity so that you aren’t ,you’re not taking on a client that you can’t keep if they need that service longer term.

Curt Widhalm 18:07
Or if you do end up keeping them, that you don’t put yourself into a position where you’re resenting a client who’s paying a lower fee and preventing you from being able to fill that spot with somebody else who might be higher fee.

Katie Vernoy 18:22
Or even, you know, kind of the financial stability that you need as a as a practice owner, right? I think it’s, it’s a lot of stuff where we can jump in and try to help, and if we aren’t looking at the potential ramifications, we can end up in that kind of resentful or financial, financially unstable spot.

Curt Widhalm 18:41
Ben’s third point is, de-prioritize your name and branding. And he says, it’s great to have a well established brand, but a disaster shouldn’t be the time to build that brand. When you’re announcing free services for those in need, the service is the headline, not the person or the company providing it. So say free support group for those affected by fill in the blank at such and such time, such and such place. Don’t say Katie Vernoy’s Happy House Therapy is providing really, really make it about the service.

Katie Vernoy 19:16
I like that point. I think it’s both the respectful, compassionate way to come into the community. I think it’s also more effective marketing. You use the phrase ambulance chaser before. I think that it can feel very self serving, or it can feel very yucky if it feels like somebody’s trying to profit off the crisis. I think the counterpoint is really looking at what is what is it that that you’re needing from this because you will gain, and how can you make sure that you’re showing up in a way that feels very good, because you may build some brand awareness by being present. And so I want to honor that we’re still businesses. We’re still, you know, doing these things, and so if you do it, you want to make sure you’re doing it as in a respectful way that builds community, builds support, doesn’t feel like you’re trying to build your brand. If you don’t think you can walk that line, if you really want to give, and you don’t have to worry about how you sort through, how you represent yourself. I think it’s the “easy” solution, and I put easy in air quotes, is to volunteer for an organization that’s doing this work, so you don’t need to manage that, that situation. That you can go forward and do the work without really addressing how it’s impacting your practice, your brand, those types of things.

… 20:40
(Advertisement Break)

Curt Widhalm 20:45
And a lot of times those organizations are experienced at this, especially if you’re like us, you’re in a community that is affected by something, seemingly for the first time. If you’re inventing the wheel in your own crisis. Organizations like the Red Cross have coordinators who are experienced with this. They know how to maximize the impact out of this, and it really does help to make this part of that true donation piece of things by being involved with something like them. I know that they do require certain trainings, and so sometimes in your reaction to wanting to help out in your community, you don’t have the training to go and be able to do that effectively, and the time to get trained in that is when things are calm, not when you’re already in kind of Crisis Response Mode. Ben’s last point is something that we’ve kind of hit on here is recognizing the length of the impact. I know for us in the Los Angeles area, there’s some places here that are prone to wildfires. I mentioned the Woolsey fire, which also affected the Malibu, San Fernando Valley, Conejo Valley area here in Los Angeles, it’s very close to where this Palisades fire is. Some clients who have last homes in the Woolsey fire were also evacuated out of the the Palisades fire here, close to me, and the response, the PTSD that shows up from people. We’re talking about things that are separated by a few years here, that even though their homes now are safe, they’re very much having trauma responses to things that have happened in the past, and so part of this is recognizing, again, things are going to affect clients in different ways and in different timelines, but your initial offering has to look at, are you really able to continue to take on and take care of clients, or do you have the resources to be able to help you with this, in addition to do you have the systems in place to take care of yourself? Because working with clients in this can put you very much at risk for things like secondary trauma and having your own trauma responses and working with clients who are potentially at a very high stress level response themselves.

Katie Vernoy 23:28
There’s a lot there. And I think the pieces that I want to expand on is first, the length of impact and and the ongoing trauma responses that will happen. And if you’re in an area that has crisis hit every year, every couple of years, this is something that it’s important that you recognize these clients are going to need potentially different types of support at different times, but they may need to be on your caseload for longer, or they may need a service that isn’t quite what you provide if you’re a crisis response provider, and they need longer term trauma care. You may need to refer out. California has a lot of wildfires. There’s places that have a lot of tornadoes or floods or hurricanes or those types of things. And so I think that there are folks who recognize this. But in a place where something comes new, it’s not quite what we’re used to. I think it’s important for us to really learn about these things. And I think that’s something that some providers are doing, is they’re providing training free, trainings, and so I’ve been trying to take advantage of some of those to learn for the future, because, you know, these things are going to continue to happen. But if we take these folks on our caseload, there is all the different stages of trauma that happen, and if we’re kind of going through it together, as we did it during the pandemic, as we do when these crisis hits our community, I think it’s important to continue to do those assessments of what does my client need? Now your second point is, what do I need? I think is so important, and I think there’s consultation groups. There’s, there’s a lot of ways that you can try to take care of the responses that you’re having. Have your own therapy, have your own consultation. And I think it’s also going back to that assessment piece. How many of these cases can you take?

Curt Widhalm 25:17
In addition, one of the things that I was not prepared for at all: myself in this process. And I say this again, not having been anywhere immediately close to an evacuation zone or being threatened, one of the things that I was not prepared for was trying to do work and then get out of a session and have 50, 60, 70, text messages from people from throughout my my life and history, from all over the country, trying to check in. And the desire to provide people with updates, but trying to catch up on information, provide people with updates and then try to go back to work just came to a point where I didn’t respond to a lot of people. And you know, I would have general responses on my my personal social media for my friends and family, but just how overwhelming it is to try to be a caretaker for people, but also provide information for people who are for legitimate reasons trying to check in on you. There does have to be some boundaries and stuff for yourselves that is, hey, yeah, there’s a certain amount of I need to stay up to date on where the fires are in case I am being threatened, but also limiting how much I’m glued to getting updates. So part of this care is really making sure that you meet your needs alongside everybody else.

Katie Vernoy 26:55
and give yourself permission to just be someone in the crisis. Because I think one of the things I potentially saw, I guess I don’t know everyone’s stories, and so I am making some assumptions, but there were folks who were clearly impacted in some way, you know, close to evacuation centers, family members having lost their homes, that kind of stuff. And I saw a lot of people taking really good care of themselves. But I also saw other people who were ready to go to evacuation centers and start doing therapy. They wanted to just get out there. And I think some of that was based on doing what you can do in a crisis situation. And I don’t know how much self reflection there was on what would be most effective and what needed to be addressed within their own crisis response. And I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, I just was very worried that there were folks that seemed to be jumping into the caretaker role when I felt like things were just a little bit too chaotic and we potentially needed to sit back. And one of the things in this last point in Ben’s article is that you can be a person in the crisis, get yourself together and then offer services as things calm down. Because a lot of the helpers disappear after the crisis and the impact goes on. So I think it’s really important to take care of your own needs while this is going on, you know, kind of put on your own oxygen mask first. But I think it’s it’s really important to think very hard about that, because while it’s also gross to be an ambulance chaser, it’s also potentially not healthy for you or potentially harmful for your clients if you’re doing this out of a need to avoid your own response to the trauma.

Curt Widhalm 28:47
We will include links to Ben’s article the American Red Cross trainings and Watch Duty in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com and hopefully this is something that, if anybody’s interested, this is the time to go through some of the trainings, be able to see how you can be able to help out, to be mobilized for a response in the future, and until next time I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.

… 29:18
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Announcer 29:19
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