Disaster Relief and Crisis Counseling

Psychosocial Issues for Children
and Adolescents in Disasters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The disaster mental health professionals listed below contributed information, insights, and thoughtful review to the development of this manual. I incorporated many of the suggestions made by my colleagues, which have significantly improved the quality of the final product. Deborah J. DeWolfe, Ph.D., Disaster Mental Health Psychologist; Robert Benedetto, DPA, LCSW, Disaster Coordinator for Ventura County Behavioral Health, Ventura, California; and Bonnie Selzler, Ph.D., Project Director for the North Dakota Flood Project, provided substantial reviews of earlier drafts of the manual and greatly improved its structure and content through their comments. Mr. Daniel Thompson, Disaster Coordinator for the State of Texas, Ms. Joan Smyrski, Disaster Coordinator for the State of Maine; Ms. Julie Council, Regular Services Grant Coordinator for Projects Cope and Recover in Arkansas all contributed case histories from the various projects that were incorporated into the case examples in Chapter Three. Finally, I would like to thank Ms. Mary Elizabeth Nelson, M.S.W., Chief of the Emergency Services and Disaster Relief Branch, Center for Mental Health Services. Her guidance and suggestions were essential in bringing this project to fruition.

Anthony H. Speier, Ph.D.
March 2000