Resident Leads Team Of Experts To Train Katrina Emergency Responders

A little more than a year after his first visit to the Gulf Coast, Thomas Demaria, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President of Behavioral Health Services at South Nassau Communities Hospital, learned that the communities are still rebuilding and the resident are still putting their lives back together.

A team of leading specialists in traumatic stress counseling led by Thomas Demaria, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President, Behavioral Health Services, South Nassau Communities Hospital, recently completed its first of a series of five visits to Mississippi to provide basic training in mental health and post traumatic stress counseling to emergency responders assisting with the recovery and rebuilding of the communities decimated by Hurricane Katrina.

The is coordinating its efforts with the Mississippi Mental Health Association and is training firemen and police officers in Buloxi and Gulfport, MS, to be peer counselors.

Dr. Demaria is joined by Russell Jones, Ph.D., First Lady Laura Bush's advisor on Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts; Andrew Levin, MD, Westchester Jewish Community Services, who coordinated mental health services for Sri Lankan communities devastated by the Tsunami in 2005 and Ruvie Rogel, Chief Operation Officer-Community Stress Prevention

Recovering from Hurricane Katrina's devastation will take many years.

Center of Tel Hai College in Kiriat Shmona, Israel.

The team is supported by a grant obtained by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in collaboration with the International School of Community Emergency Management and the Community Stress Prevention Center of Tel Hai College in Kiriat Shmona, Israel.

"My colleagues, the organizations we represent and the

institutions that founded this project are to be commended for their altruism and compassionate response to minister to the mental health and emotional needs of the communities that continue to struggle to recover from the deep wounding caused by Hurricane Katrina," said Dr. Demaria.

"I am eager to work with my colleagues to fulfill the mission of this project to foster resiliency of the emergency responders and the communities they serve."

The hope and resiliency of children who suffered the loss of home and in some cases loved ones and pets at the hands of Hurricane Katrina was uplifting and inspiring to Thomas Demaria, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President of Behavioral Health Services at South Nassau Communities Hospital.

Dr. Demaria and the team conducted the first visit of the series February 5-7. It marked the first time that Dr. Demaria had visited the Gulf Coast region since leading a mission that was organized by the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) just days after the hurricane made landfall.

In 2006, Dr. Demaria, who has been honored repeatedly for his community disaster work, was awarded the New York State Liberty Award for his work with residents and first responders of the Gulf Coast during that first visit. It was the second time in less than five years that he was presented the prestigious award. Dr. Demaria received the Liberty Award for the first time in 2002 after founding South Nassau's World Trade Center Family Center (a program for bereaved 9/11 families) and Home Ground (a program for 9/11 first responders) and for providing crisis counseling for Long Island schools and religious organizations in the months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Dr. Demaria has provided counseling in over 250 local and regional disasters. He has been a responder for the past ten years for the Mental Health Disaster Teams of the Nassau County and Greater New York Chapters of the American Red Cross. Dr. Demaria is also the founder of SIBSPlace, which for the past seven years has provided counseling for children with seriously ill siblings.

Dr. Demaria has been a member of South Nassau's medical staff since 1987. He the recipient of the prestigious Sarah Haley Award for Clinical Excellence that is presented annually by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) and the Humanitarian Award presented by the Center for Christian and Jewish Studies at Molloy College.