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MARIN CAMFT

Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

The TRT meets on the third Friday of the month at 11:00am

All Marin CAMFT members are welcome to attend.

Please RSVP at least 2 days prior to bethleibmft@gmail.com, so she can get you the Zoom link.

Winter 2022 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Greetings Everyone,


Happy New Year and Welcome 2022!

The Marin CAMFT Trauma Response Team, (TRT), is excited for the new year and the new adventures ahead. We have made significant progress in our collaboration efforts with the staff at Marin County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. The goal is to provide skilled mental health volunteers during school crises, critical incidents and larger disasters in Marin as well as other Bay area counties. Under the auspices of the Marin Medical Reserve Corps, (MMRC), TRT members will be deployed by county officials as part of the national Medical Reserves Corps program developed after 9/11. 

Through our TRT/MMRC collaboration, TRT members will be pre-vetted, receive monthly training and be the foundation for a larger team of skilled mental health volunteers. To learn more and join this important effort, please reach out to one of the TRT chairs whose contact info is listed below.

Dee Treshnell, who revitalized the Trauma Response Team efforts with Marin CAMFT and lead the School Crisis Team has stepped back from these roles and will be sincerely missed. Her leadership, experience with schools, and sense of humor gave the team an outstanding foundation. The School Crisis Team serves school districts in Marin when disaster strikes and school counselors are overwhelmed. In her absence, Beth and Kathleen are reaching out to team members and the larger Marin CAMFT community for someone with organizational and school experience to co-chair the TRT School Crisis Team. Please let us know if that is you!

Two mental health news items are important to highlight. First, a National State of Emergency was declared for the mental health of America’s youth and in October, 2021, a national state of emergency for the mental health of America’s youth was declared by leading child health care groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association. 

Representing more than 77,000 physicians and more than 200 children’s hospitals, this declaration draws attention to the pandemic’s worsening effect on youth’s already significant mental health challenges. “Today’s declaration is an urgent call to policymakers at all levels of government - we must treat this mental health crisis like the emergency it is,” urged Savio Beers, AAP President Dr. Lee.

With Marin County already having one of the highest teen suicide rates in the Bay area, additional attention to youth mental health needs, programs and resources is much needed. What are you observing in your practice?

Second, add this phone number to your contacts: Disaster Distress Hotline: 1-800-985-5990

This is a 24/7 365-day-a-year, national hotline dedicated to providing immediate crisis counseling for people who are experiencing emotional distress related to any natural or human-caused disaster. This toll-free, multilingual, and confidential crisis support service is available to all residents in the United States and its territories. Spanish speakers can call the hotline and press “2” for 24/7 bilingual support. Interpretation services are available in over 100 languages.

In addition, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, (SAMHSA), has a Disaster app that offers first responders immediate access for any type of traumatic event at every response phase. Download the app and learn more about the hotline at https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline.

If you’re interested in participating in the TRT, please join our monthly meetings which include speakers and discussions on topics such as disaster mental health, trauma, experiences in the field, and pertinent trainings. Our meetings are on the third Friday of the month at 11 am. Please contact Beth to get the Zoom link.

Fall 2021 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Greetings and wishing you all the best with your continued good health and safety.

The Marin CAMFT Trauma Response Team (TRT) has been on alert during these challenging times of COVID, California fires and school crisis events. Our TRT consists of two teams: Disaster Mental Health and School Crisis.

We recently responded through our partners at the County of Marin Office of Education to a school crisis. Our team connected with local school administrators, teachers and students to support them through the return to classes and a difficult time. We are proud of our team’s response in trying times as we continue to grow and develop our Disaster Mental Health and School Crisis Teams.

We are cultivating stronger working relationships in our Marin community, which includes our members joining the MMRC (Marin Medical Reserve Corps) at: https://www.marinhhs.org/mmrc, as well as pursuing further trainings in Critical Incident response and Suicide Prevention.

TRT members who want to deploy for a local school crisis and/or critical incidents will need to join the MMRC. Participating in the MMRC is easy and affords greater coordination with the Marin County Crisis Unit and Office of Emergency operations.

The Marin County Suicide Prevention Collaborative is led by Kara Connors. An important goal for the year is to increase our connection with this amazing team. Their meeting dates are listed at the County website: https://www.marinhhs.org/suicide-prevention.

Our partnership with the Red Cross remains strong and will aid in quick deployment to disasters and traumatic events in the community. Red Cross Disaster Mental Health training enables us to deploy to disasters within Marin County, the greater Bay area, and California.

Kathleen Ries, a lead for our Trauma Response Team, is the head of Disaster Mental Health for Marin Red Cross, which further strengthens our involvement and readiness for disasters. Our team is becoming a vital part of response to disasters, trauma and school crisis in Marin County. We welcome new members and encourage you to reach out to our team leaders. Our meetings are energetic and involve speakers in the field, member input and future plans for the team.

We meet on the third Friday of the month at 11:00am and our meetings are open to all Marin CAMFT members.

Our philosophy is that our team is only as strong as each individual member. We promote involvement, idea sharing and goal setting by all of our members. In this way, our team better serves all communities in Marin.

We hope to see you soon!


Summer 2021 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Marin CAMFT’s Trauma Response Team has been increasingly active and engaging with our community this year. We’ve been connecting with our members and with the community with very positive and exciting results!

The number of team members both on our Trauma Team and our School Crisis and Support Team has increased. Two members, Tammie Grant and Pam Lister, gave excellent presentations at recent meetings. Discussions have generated so much interest that our meetings now include an optional lobby session in which we continue our discussions after the meeting.

These monthly meetings are open to all Marin CAMFT members. Our next meeting is Friday, July 9th at 9am.  If you'd like to join, please contact one of our co-chairs below and we'll send you the Zoom link. This meeting has been canceled; please check back later for an announcement when the Committee will meet again.

In keeping with our community outreach goals, we’ve initiated several online meetings with the leaders of numerous County agencies that share our intention to meet the needs of our Marin population, by creating a joint response to disasters, crises, and traumatic events. Specifically, our team could offer pro bono mental health support along with Marin County’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services staff. We’d like to thank Todd Paler, Program Manager of the Crisis Unit, and Kara Connors, Marin HHS Senior Program Manager for Suicide Prevention, for meeting with us and including us in this important community effort.

Another exciting development is that we are now more “present” on the Marin CAMFT website and easier to find, with the Trauma Response Team page now moved to sit with the other direct links within the header of marincamft.org. We are very thankful to have Lisa Wenninger share her expertise and time as we move toward increasing our presence as we add newsletters, team requirements, and potentially, a blog. Our continuing effort to increase our visibility will make our presence and team more accessible to those who seek support and to those who wish to join our team.

The good news just keeps coming . . . Our three leads, Beth Leib, Kathleen Ries, and Dee Treshnell, recently met in a retreat format to evaluate “where we are” and discuss our potential goals for the year. We held a productive online retreat on May 21st for our Trauma Team members wherein ideas and goals from the team were shared. Our members' visions aligned with our original vision and intention for our Trauma Response Team. Every team is only as strong as each individual member! We greatly appreciate all of the keen insights and wisdom from our valued members.

New Marin CAMFT members are welcome. If you’re interested in helping our community during critical incidents and disasters, please attend a few of our meetings and consider joining our Trauma Response Team. Let’s move forward in offering support to our community as disaster mental health workers.

Wildfire season is here and Marin is in a serious drought. Our rainfall levels over the past year have been the lowest on record in more than 140 years. Marin residents may experience new levels of anxiety and fear due to the intensity and duration of wildfires in the past few years. How do we prepare ourselves and support our clients? UCSF Department of Psychiatry posted a timely article, Coping with Wildfires and Climate Change Crises, at psych.ucsf.edu.

We wish you all an enjoyable and safe summer that includes people, places, and experiences that we have all missed during this challenging year.

Spring 2021 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Marin CAMFT’s Trauma Response Team invites members who are interested in learning more about our team to attend our monthly Zoom meeting, typically held on the third Friday of every month at 11:00 am PT, though sometimes this schedule varies.  Please RSVP to bethleibmft@gmail.com if you're interested in joining us and we will confirm the next meeting and you'll be on the list to get the Zoom link. We are looking forward to seeing you! 

We have several projects underway for 2021:

  • building our skills as a trauma response team
  • our new School Crisis Team, already in the works and then accelerated due to the tragedies of youth suicide in our community in early 2021
  • offering pro bono sessions to those most affected by COVID-19

We encourage you to join our team at this intersection, where we meld former members and their expertise with new members who are adding positive energy and enthusiasm. You may contact any of the Co-Chairs below if you would like more information or to get involved.

Winter 2021 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Marin CAMFT’s Trauma Response Team invites members who are interested in learning more about our team to attend our monthly Zoom meeting this Friday, January 22nd at 11 am. Please RSVP to bethleibmft@gmail.com by 12 noon on Thursday, January 21st in order to receive the Zoom link for this meeting. We are looking forward to seeing you! 

We are excited about our upcoming speakers including Tammie Grant, Melissa d’Amore and Pam Lister.

We encourage you to join our team at this intersection, where we meld former members and their expertise with new members who are adding positive energy and enthusiasm. You may contact any of the Co-Chairs below if you would like more information or to get involved.
Marin CAMFT’s Trauma Response Team invites members who are interested in learning more about our team to attend our monthly Zoom meeting this Friday, January 22nd at 11 am. Please RSVP to 
bethleibmft@gmail.com by 12 noon on Thursday, January 21st in order to receive the Zoom link for this meeting. We are looking forward to seeing you! 

Fall 2020 Update from Marin CAMFT's Trauma Response Team

Here are highlights from the Trauma Response Team:

Psychological First Aid

Co-Chair Kathleen Ries presented an engaging quiz on Psychological First Aid (PFA) principles at our August monthly meeting. PFA is usually required in a significant disaster or collective trauma such as wildfires or a global pandemic. While attending to others in a disaster, trauma response workers need to remain calm in an often chaotic environment. Our calm presence, tone of voice, eye contact, and confidence have a huge impact on others. Attunement, empathy, and stabilization are keys to soothing, grounding, and helping others to self-regulate and strengthen their resilience. Connectedness counterbalances adversity.

In a disaster, the licensed mental health professional triages three levels of reactions: normal stress reactions; severe stress reactions; and reactions that pose a potential danger to self and others. PFA skills also provide the framework for our own self-care, connecting to others with kindness, calm and compassion, helping people feel safe, meeting people’s basic needs, encouraging good coping, giving realistic reassurances, connecting people with their local resources and support systems, and giving accurate and timely information.

Update on current local collective traumas

Dennis Scremin, our liaison for the Red Cross, reported on the numerous fires and evacuations in the Bay area. The challenges of managing an evacuation while addressing the needs of social distancing, hand washing, cleaning, and mask wearing are enormous.

Speakers at our monthly meetings

Our team is enjoying and benefitting from our recent addition of speakers at our monthly meetings. Dennis Scremin spoke at our September meeting. On October 16 at 11 am, Melissa d’Amore will be speaking on Disaster Mental Health and Trauma Recovery. On November 20, Pam Lister will speak on being “in the field” during deployment and will share some of her positive, uplifting experiences.

Our three exciting areas of focus

We are excited about the educational component of our meetings as well as the engagement of our team with the community. It has been rewarding to get to know our new team members. While we understand that Covid-19 has changed our lives and perhaps affected some of our commitments, we are hoping that more of you will attend our next TRT Zoom meeting on October 16. If you'd like to attend this online meeting, or want more information, please email any of the three co-chairs below. We want to learn more about each of you, as well as determine who is interested in our three main areas of focus for the months ahead. These areas of focus include:

1) Disaster Response Team Activity in conjunction with the Marin Red Cross Mental Health Team.

2) School Crisis Counseling for students, school staff, and parents. The location will be announced as a pilot when approval has been secured.

3) Pro Bono Mental Health Services for those most impacted by Covid-19, including first responders and survivors (2 or 3 sessions to help people find resources and cope.)

Please let us know if you would like to get involved with our School Crisis Counseling Pilot and/or our Pro Bono Covid-19 Mental Health Services. We invite Marin CAMFT therapists to join our Trauma Response Team and help us launch these two new programs.

If you have any trauma referrals or other suggestions for our TRT, please contact us through our Marin CAMFT voicemail at: (415) 459-3484, extension 2.

We are looking forward to connecting with you, expanding our team, and serving our beautiful community in the months ahead.

Trauma Response Team Co-Chairs

Beth Leib, LMFT

bethleibmft@gmail.com


Dee Treshnell, LMFT

deetreshnell@comcast.net 


Kathleen Ries, LMFT, MS, MPH, RD

lifesperfect@sbcglobal.net


Marin County Chapter of CAMFT                  

PO Box 9065 San Rafael, CA 94912-9065     

(415) 459 3484       www.marincamft.org


Marin CAMFT is approved by  the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT Provider #56895) to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs

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