(TNS) — More than $815,000 in federal disaster money will help local mental health providers find and assist people who are still suffering months after the deadly May 16 tornado damaged thousands of homes and businesses in St. Louis and St. Louis County.
The providers learned this month they were awarded the money through the Missouri Department of Health’s Crisis Counseling Program, a short-term outreach effort that has for decades been funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help build hope and resiliency in disaster survivors.
One recipient, Places for People, which provides treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders, will hire four full-time crisis counselors to canvas neighborhoods and attend community events. Other agencies say they will focus on children, schools and checking in with residents over time.
“We are really looking at folks that have sort of white-knuckled their way through, trying to navigate this without a lot of support,” said Meagan Doty, the agency’s vice president of clinical services. “They are going to need some sort of intensive outreach to assess their needs and get them connected to help.”
The money could help agencies schedule meetings for patients every week to work on anxiety-management skills, connecting them with other agencies that provide support services, or driving someone to a provider to enroll in longer-term care.
“This is an opportunity for us to ensure that folks that are still out there needing support have a warm hand to help them navigate through an already complex and hard-to-understand system,” Doty said.
States with areas that have been declared major disasters by the U.S. president can apply for crisis counseling funds. The money must be used for outreach, helping survivors cope with stress and connecting them to long-term recovery services.
Other local agencies receiving the funds are BJC Behavioral Health, Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers, Queen of Peace, Freedom Community Center, InPower Institute, Restorative Justice Movement and the St. Louis Health Department.
Bootheel Behavioral Health will help survivors in Sikeston in southeast Missouri, which was also hit by tornadoes on May 16.
The tornado damaged a huge swath of north St. Louis, where many residents were already struggling financially, facing barriers to health care and experiencing health problems. People are still living in shelters, in tents or U-Hauls in front of their demolished properties.
As many as 10,000 tornado victims are living in damaged homes and vulnerable to the coming cold, St. Louis government officials said in announcement last week about city plans to put nearly $14 million into tornado relief and new winter shelters.
“I think it’s hard for the general public to sort of wrap their brains around the fact that there are still people, five months later, just living on their property the best they can — some without utilities, some in extremely dangerous, structurally unsound buildings,” Doty said.
Behavioral health providers say they are unsure what type of care people need —but they expect the need to be great.
Doty said people still needing care are likely those who did not show up at shelters or relief services initially, or who don’t have family or friends to lean on.
“They don’t have the income to make repairs without extensive financial support, and in some cases, they’re already living with some sort of mental health or substance use disorder, and this is just serving to exacerbate that,” she said.
DeWanna Daniels, director of child and adolescent services for Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers, said she sees families continue to struggle with disrupted sleep, inability to focus, anxiety and irritability.
“The community needs sustained, coordinated behavioral-health outreach services, especially as individuals are still in the ‘survive’ phase rather than the ‘heal’ phase,” Daniels said.
People’s Health Centers plans to use its funds to focus on the needs of children and conduct face-to-face outreach through school-based programs, primary healthcare providers and other health services.
The Missouri Department of Mental Health Behavioral Health Strike Team — trained volunteers from mental health providers across the state deployed after critical events — provided care in neighborhoods and shelters for more than two months after the tornado.
The FEMA funds, providers say, gives them another opportunity to have people on the ground.
“This grant allows us to really mobilize and go into an area and make sure we’ve gone door-to-door,” said Jennifer Haasis, director of compliance for BJC Behavioral Health . “We are going back and saying, ‘How are you now?’”
Haasis said BJC plans to hire six crisis counselors and a manager with its share of the funding, which she expects will be extended beyond the program’s initial 60 days to a year.
The BJC counselors will spend as long as needed talking to residents or they will leave leaflets with numbers to call for help, she said.
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