Community counseling needed for U.S. relatives of Haiti earthquake victims, UF professor says
Posted Jan. 20, 2010
A University of Florida counselor education professor sees an urgent need for community-wide counseling services here in the United States for family members and others close to the victims and survivors of the earthquake in Haiti.
Since the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Jan. 12, Cirecie West-Olatunji, associate professor of counselor education at UF’s College of Education, has been involved in efforts of two national counseling organizations—the American Counseling Association and the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development—to share information with fellow counselors about symptoms of traumatic stress and associated interventions.
West-Olatunji and Shirley St. Juste, a graduate of UF’s counselor education program and now a doctoral student at Howard University, were interviewed on this topic in a bilingual podcast (with Haitian Creole translation) titled “Stress and Haitian Americans, After the Earthquake”, now posted on the ACA Web site at www.counseling.org.
West-Olatunji and colleagues also have developed content on the AMCD Web site to provide useful information to mental health professionals, such as mental health disaster interventions, a bibliography on disaster mental health issues, relevant Web sites and additional referral sources.
She said many cities and states, especially those with large concentrations of Haitian Americans or residents working or studying in Haiti, need to respond not only to individual relatives or families of earthquake victims, but to entire communities when warranted.
“Community counseling efforts reach beyond individuals and family interventions,” West-Olatunji said. She cited podcasts, public service announcements, candlelight vigils and makeshift church-sponsored counseling clinics as ways to reach out to entire communities following major disasters.
She said disaster-counseling involving diverse cultures also deserves more emphasis in counselor training and education.
“Given the rise in natural and human-made disasters globally, it is increasingly important for disaster and crisis counseling to become integrated into the training of professional counselors and other mental health service providers,” West Olatunji said. “The Hurricane Katrina disaster and tsunami-affected southeast Asia suggest that counselors need to understand the culture of the people they are helping.”
West-Olatunji’s research specialties include multicultural counseling and community-based counseling models in the wake of major disasters, when the need for counseling overwhelms the abilities of local professional counselors. She has taken UF graduate counseling students to New Orleans to assist in post-disaster recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. Globally, she has organized national teams of counseling students, faculty and practitioners to travel to South Africa and Botswana for community-based counseling of HIV and AIDS patients.
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CONTACTS
Source: West-Olatunji can be reached at 352-273-4324, or cwestolatunji@coe.ufl.edu
Writer: Larry Lansford, COE News-Communications; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
