AUSTIN (KXAN) — Healing takes time, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
A year after flash flooding ravaged Central Texas and the Hill Country, people are still working to rebuild their communities and heal from the tragic loss of more than 130 people.
Dr. Julie Kaplow, executive director of the trauma and grief center at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, said that it can sometimes take six months to a year after a traumatic event occurs for post-traumatic stress to show up.
Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute is one of the organizations that received a grant from the Community Foundation of Texas Hill Country. That funding allowed the institute to conduct what it called a rapid mental health needs assessment and create the Family Mental Health Care Fund.
Dr. Kaplow said that during the assessment, the institute worked with local leaders and community partners in Kerr County to “better understand and elevate the behavioral health resources they already had, identify any gaps that they were suffering from in terms of mental health care, and then carefully look at what trainings might be needed to better equip the community to be able to serve kids and adults who have experienced trauma or loss in the context of this tragedy.”
She said the institute also quickly found that many clinicians in the community had some training in trauma, but little training in grief. Because of that, the institute offered a “learning collaborative,” bringing together about 60 community and school-based clinicians in the region, to train in an evidence-based treatment that addresses both trauma and grief, Dr. Kaplow said.
“Really, that was designed to ensure that any child who had experienced the floods and were directly impacted would be able to receive that best practice care,” Dr. Kaplow said.
The funding from the Community Foundation of Texas Hill Country also helped the institute with the Family Mental Health Care Fund, which covers out-of-pocket costs associated with mental health care for the family members of those who lost their lives. It also supports the clinicians who are providing those services, Dr. Kaplow said.
Dr. Kaplow said the support from the Community Foundation also helped the Meadows Institute expand its knowledge base and response strategies when it comes to responding to traumatizing events.
“We know that there is still some stigma associated with seeking mental health care, and that’s kind of across the board, and so one of the things that we’re doing is actively attempting to validate that it is completely normal to experience some form of post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of something like this,” Dr. Kaplow said. “And in fact, PTSD is a normal response to an abnormal event. And that’s a theme that we’ve seen over the course of many different tragedies, but really helping people to understand that there is nothing shameful or embarrassing about asking for help in this kind of a situation.”
She said another thing they’ve learned is that everyone responds differently to tragedies.
“We know that there are certain risk factors that put certain people at more risk than others,” Dr. Kaplow said. “So, for example, those who were directly impacted, those who lost loved ones in the flood, those who lost homes in the flood, those who witnessed other people being injured, those are the individuals that are going to need the most care over time.”
Dr. Kaplow also said that it can take time for post-traumatic stress to manifest for some people.
“Sometimes post-traumatic stress doesn’t show up for six months to a full year after the event. And so we’re really trying to prepare the community to understand that the PTSD may not have gone away, that it is likely that for many people it is going to resurface around that one-year mark,” she said. “And also acknowledging that the grief never goes away, that the grief is a reflection of the love we have for the people who died. And so we don’t necessarily even want to rid people of their grief. What we want to do is help them to cope with those waves of grief as they come and go over the course of the person’s life.”
Dr. Kaplow said that it can be hard for people to find evidence-based trauma treatment and grief-informed treatment, so the Community Foundation has funded the Meadows Institute’s clinical affiliate, called the Lucine Center, to help families find the right type of care at the right time.
“Because we are funded to do more care navigation, we are really very well-versed now in figuring out where all of the clinicians, all of the behavioral health organizations that are able to offer that trauma and grief-informed care? What kinds of insurance do they take? And if they don’t take insurance, what are the costs of that?” Dr. Kaplow explained.
“And it’s also highlighted the importance of training lots of different audiences. So not just the clinicians in the community, but really thinking about where do children and families go in the more immediate aftermath of a tragedy? And then over time, what kind of help are they seeking?”
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