Maine CDC - Disaster Behavioral Health

To enhance Maine's disaster behavioral health statewide infrastructure of disaster behavioral health volunteers and support the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mission.

Description:
The Maine CDC contracts with AdCare Educational Institute of Maine, Inc. to perform specific disaster behavioral health preparedness and emergency response projects that serve to enhance Maine's disaster behavioral health infrastructure and support the Maine CDC mission.

History:
AdCare Educational Institute of Maine began working on disaster behavioral health, together with the Maine Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services and the Maine Office of Substance Abuse in 2003 with the assistance of a SAMHSA grant.  The focus was to continue to plan the creation of the service system required to respond to disaster in cooperation with mental health and substance abuse agencies and community groups; enhance the capacity of the current crisis service system to respond to potential disasters by training administrators, supervisors and workers in local counties in disaster behavioral health services; and test and assess local response capabilities.  Since then the Maine CDC, Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness has continued funding for this work and has enabled the growth and  formalization of a structure, at the State level which is being replicated at the county level, to provide a disaster behavioral health response to Maine disasters.  A major component of this ability to respond is dependent of recruitment and training or disaster behavioral health volunteers able to respond to disasters in their local communities.

Contact people:

Pamela Holland, Program Director, (phone), (email) Tammy McLaughlin, Program Manager, (phone), (email)

Office fax number: (207) 287-4612

Address:

75 Stone Street Augusta, ME 04330 (See a map)

Web Site: None specified

Last updated on July 14, 2009