Community-Based Psychological First Aid: A Practical Guide to Helping Individuals and Communities during Difficult Times

by Gerard A Jacobs

Overview

Community-Based Psychological First Aid: A Practical Guide to Helping Individuals and Communities during Difficult Times presents a practical method for helping those in need in difficult times. No advanced training in psychology is needed to use it.

Injuries from disasters, terrorist events, and civil unrest are not just physical. These events also cause psychological trauma that can do lasting damage. Psychological First Aid (PFA) draws on human resilience and aims to reduce stress systems and help those affected recover. It is not professional psychotherapy, and those providing this kind of aid do not need a degree to help. Gerard Jacobs has developed this community-based method of delivering PFA over 20 years and has taught it in over 30 countries.

Along with the easy-to-follow method, Jacobs includes examples of how this works in action in different situations, and presents scenarios to practice. Unique in its approach of community engagement to train community members to help each other, this guide is an excellent resource for local emergency managers to engage in whole community emergency management.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780128042922
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	06/03/2016
Pages:	234
Sales rank:	1,073,022
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gerard A. (Jerry) Jacobs, Ph.D., is the Director of the Disaster Mental Health Institute (DMHI) and a Professor in the doctoral Clinical Psychology Training Program at The University of South Dakota.

He has worked with organizations nationally (e.g., American Red Cross, American Psychological Association [APA], U.S. Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Department of Defense) and internationally (e.g., World Health Organization, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Organizations, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, International Union for Psychological Science, Japan Red Cross Society).

His disaster responses have ranged from minor events to the massive loss of life and chaos of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the 2001 Gujarat, India, earthquake, and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. He was asked to return from working on the tsunami response in Sri Lanka to set up the American Red Cross disaster mental health program for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Jacobs was an “invited expert” on the National Biodefense Science Board’s (now the National Preparedness and Response Science Board) Subcommittee on Disaster Mental Health and served as a member of the National Academies of Science Institute of Medicine Committee on Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism (Institute of Medicine, 2003). He has been working on the implementation of community-based psychological support since 1996 and has worked in more than 30 countries in developing psychological support programs.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1:  What is Community-Based Psychological First Aid, and What It Is Not
Chapter 2: Providing PFA
Chapter 3: Traumatic Stress
Chapter 4: The Stress of Disasters
Chapter 5: The Stress of Terrorist Events
Chapter 6: The Stress of Civil Unrest
Chapter 7: Individual Differences in Responses to Stress
Chapter 8: Active Listening
Chapter 9: Problem Solving
Chapter 10: Coping With Stress
Chapter 11: Providing Instrumental (Practical) Assistance
Chapter 12: Loss and Grieving
Chapter 13: When and How to Refer
Chapter 14: Privacy and Ethical Considerations
Chapter 15: Taking Care of Yourself While You Support Others
Chapter 16: Children and Traumatic Stress
Chapter 17: Vulnerable Adult Populations and Traumatic Stress
Chapter 18: Closing Thoughts
Appendix: Community-Based Adaptation of PFA

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From the Publisher

A proven "psychological first aid" method to help responders and other community members alleviate the mental health impacts of disasters, terrorist attacks, civil unrest, and other emergencies, including case studies and practice scenarios useful for teaching emergency management principles to the whole community