Heading to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) for the latest on Tropical Storm Cindy, I felt my shoulders tightening up, and caught myself thinking, “Oh no, not again!”
But what about those who are still rebuilding from last year’s floods? Is Louisiana prepared to help with the emotional and psychological stress of this event?
“We will be mindful of the need for counseling, but the social services block grant that we requested from the federal government after last August has not been given to us – at least, not yet. So we don’t have additional resources for that,” Governor John Bel Edwards said, when asked about mental health services’ preparation for this storm.
The governor did add: “You know, we do have our Human Service authorities that are out there, working on that.”
But Human Services district funding, Department of Health behavioral health services, and DCFS have been cut back repeatedly, due to the state’s continuing fiscal problems. Yet despite the tight budget, Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Marketa Garner Walters has already thought about T.S. Cindy’s potential to trigger traumatic flashbacks.
“We’re working directly with foster parents, reminding them of the trauma,” Walters says, and then offers what social workers are telling foster parents – good advice for all parents and caregivers.
“Watch for behavior. If a very talkative, outgoing child suddenly gets very quiet and withdrawn -- or the opposite, if a child that’s normally just pretty quiet starts chattering like a magpie -- then those are signals that something’s going on in that child and they’re trying to process this trauma.”
Flashbacks happen to adults, too, as Walters knows firsthand. She was the assistant Social Services secretary (renamed DCFS) during Hurricane Katrina.
“When I was called to New York to work with that child welfare system after Hurricane Sandy, I got out my own Katrina materials – to go through and prep and remind myself -- and melted down. It just really hit me, all those memories.”
What did she do? She phoned a friend.
“The first thing that I did was call a colleague that went through it with me, so that we could just talk,” Walters explains. "If you can talk to somebody that either has gone through it with you or just understands, mostly, that’s all we need. We kind of just need to get it out, and then we can let it go and move on.”
For kids and parents, there’s 1-800-KIDLINE, run by the Louisiana Crisis Intervention Center. Louisiana’s Department of Health has counseling available through the Louisiana Spirit program, at 1-866-310-7977.
The federal Disaster Distress National Hotline can be reached at 1-800-985-5990, or by texting “TalkWithUs” to 66746.