The need for mental health interventions in disasters has long been recognized. The Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness (FCPHP) has been providing disaster mental health training to employees of the Florida Department of Health and others since 2001. One of the training programs was Bioterrorism Trauma Intervention Specialist Training (BTIST), offered between May 2003 and January 2004. The FCPHP has also developed three distance learning courses, including one that provides advice to responders who are experiencing compassion fatigue. The BTIST curriculum prepares participants to provide mental health interventions during and following disasters. The four hurricanes that struck Florida in a 7-week period in 2004 created a great demand for mental health services. The FCPHP supported the Florida Department of Health response effort by providing a roster of BTIST trainees and hundreds of copies of the compassion fatigue audio CD. The FCPHP conducted a Web-based survey of the BTIST participants after the hurricanes. A large majority of respondents reported that the training had given them greater knowledge of disaster mental health, provided many disaster mental health skills, and the skills had been valuable in their professional and personal lives. Most of those who had actively responded to the hurricanes indicated that the training had given them confidence for their response and that they had used the acquired skills in their response efforts.
The Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness in the University of South Florida College of Public Health and the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) collaborated to design, develop, and deliver two competency-based epidemiology training programs aimed at increasing the epidemiologic preparedness and response capability of the FDOH workforce. They were also designed to meet the requirements of the National Incident Management System and recommendations or needs identified in national studies. The basis for the trainings is an epidemiology competency set developed by the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine. The target audiences for the two trainings are non-epidemiologists or practicing epidemiologists who have relatively little formal education in epidemiology. Both courses have online as well as onsite modules. Alternate tabletop exercises have been completed and delivered for anthrax and plague. Both trainings require participant demonstration of skills. The trainings have been well received, appear to be effective, and are used to credential members of Florida's epidemiology strike teams.
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