Need a challenge? Time for a change?

John D. Weaver, LCSW

Are you a social worker, psychologist, nurse, counselor, or psychiatrist? Is your caseload (patient load) too high? Has managed care got you down? Fed up with treatment plans, progress notes, and forms of all sorts? Are you tired of the same old blend of bureaucracy, politics, paperwork, and pathology? If the magic has gone out of your career, then maybe it is time for a change. Become a Disaster Mental Health Services (DMH) volunteer with the American Red Cross (ARC).

Once you have qualified and completed training (that is often free and also offers CEUs), you will be able to travel to exotic and not-so-exotic places, meet people whose lives have been struck by disasters - and help them, with ARC covering all disaster related expenses. Participants in ARC training will learn all about the Red Cross DMH program's requirements and opportunities to serve (locally, nationally, and internationally).

WARNING: One brief tour of duty with ARC is usually enough to get someone hooked into a lifetime of volunteer service. The practice experiences are wonderfully rich and professionally rewarding. Relief work has rekindled the kind of helping spirit among many DMH workers that they have not felt since shortly after graduate school. Some describe their first experience as a calling to their DMH volunteer career.

To date I have served as a DMH volunteer on eight major, national disasters and many more local events. Going out on one or two disaster assignments (and several teaching assignments) each year provides me with some much needed respite from my regular duties as a middle manager in a county mental health clinic. No other moments in my career have come close to providing me the personal and professional rewards that I have experienced as a Red Cross volunteer. In fact, I am so impressed by the work ARC is doing that I am donating half of the royalties from my DMH book to ARC's National Disaster Relief Fund, and my publisher, Professional Resource Press, is matching my donation.

Contact ARC and see what it is all about. Calling the disaster relief component of your local ARC chapter (or the next larger, regional or state office) is the best way to get started. If your local chapter does not yet have a DMH component, you can help get one organized. To meet the minimum requirements for national assignments you should sign up to take the Intro to Disaster, Psychological First Aid, and Foundations of Disaster Mental Health courses. You should also pick up Standard First Aid and Adult CPR classes. Whenever possible, you should also add, Serving the Diverse Community. As you get hooked, you will probably want to add other cross-training classes (e.g., mass care, damage assessment, family service, physical health services, and supervision classes are all available).

ARC clearly needs more people to help. In order to qualify for National ARC service, DMH volunteers must be licensed or certified social workers, psychologists, counselors, nurses, or psychiatrists. Persons who are not yet licensed/certified can sometimes serve locally, if under the direct supervision of a fully qualified DMH worker. Another popular option is to serve in another ARC specialty such as family service (a casework function), mass care (for feeding and sheltering), health services, or many others. There are so many opportunities that there is an ARC position to fit just about anyone's interests. Please call your local chapter and volunteer.

To learn more about what is happening with current ARC activities and relief efforts, you can contact ARC's web page:

http://www.redcross.org

http://www.eyeofthestorminc.com