Psychosocial Teams Leadership Training

In the past few years, SC DHEC (South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control) and DMH (South Carolina Department of Mental Health) have worked together to develop local psychosocial response teams, whose responsibility is to ensure that the psychosocial needs of South Carolinians are met in the event of a disaster. These teams are designed to be co-led by a District DHEC Social Work Director and their DMH counterpart.

However, based on a brief needs assessment and individual discussions with the respective agency representatives, there was confusion as to respective roles in an emergency situation. Furthermore, while members of these teams have been exposed to a number of content-oriented trainings through the Community Disaster Response Services (CDRS) project, wide variation exists as to their capacity to build an infrastructure that will support teams’ cohesiveness and activities.

The Psychosocial Teams Training Project consists of two phases: the first one was implemented in Spring 2006, and the second one will be implemented in the following grant year. The first phase was designed to enhance co-leadership of the teams by facilitating collaboration between DMH and DHEC at the local level. This past February, DHEC Social Work Directors and DMH Disaster Coordinators were provided with the opportunity to discuss and clarify their roles and responsibilities within the psychosocial teams through participation in a one-day psychosocial tabletop exercise discussion. Objectives for this event were to: (1) increase collaboration between DMH and DHEC participants; (2) facilitate clarification of issues and roles as they relate to the psychosocial teams; (3) identify the teams' infrastructure strengths and weaknesses; and (4) further assess the training needs of the teams.

The second phase will include process-oriented team-based trainings designed to facilitate infrastructure building of the teams, and development of a team-based project, both of which will start in the fall and occur over a six-month period.