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coordinate local agency responses in the most
affected towns and cities. The CRRT also served as
the repository for the collection and dissemination
of resources and protocols for safe and effective
post-traumatic crisis management and recovery
counseling interventions well in advance of the
next disaster.
Over the next month, the state-academic part-
nership team developed an organizational plan
and operational policies and procedures for
the establishment of an ongoing administra-
tive, services, and research infrastructure that
subsequently became the Center for Trauma
Response, Recovery, and Preparedness (CTRP; see
www.CTRP.org for a description of the CTRP
organizational structure, sample public and profes-
sional education services and curricula, and a
resource repository for behavioral health, social
service, medical, and educational professionals,
victims of all ages and families, first respon-
ders, administrators, and researchers). Grant funds
from the SAMHSA Centers for Substance Abuse
Treatment (CSAT), Substance Abuse Prevention
(CSAP), and Mental Health Services (CMHS) to
DMHAS provided the basis for CTRP initiatives
over the next three years.
11.2.7 Connecticut's Response; The
Center for Trauma Response, Recovery,
and Preparedness
Within hours after the tragic events of September
11th, training and supervisory support were
requested by hundreds of behavioral health profes-
sionals and personnel in Connecticut who recog-
nized that they needed immediate guidance to
adapt their skill sets and responsibly provide
acute and long term services to individuals, fami-
lies, organizations, and communities while “first
doing no harm.” Many already had been asked by
media, schools, and civic, business, and religious
organizations to provide guidance for directly or
indirectly affected adults and children.
In the midst of setting up a mental health
command center in the state Department of
Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS)
Commissioner's office as an adjunct to the overall
state incident command center established by the
Governor and the Office of Emergency Manage-
ment, administrators from DMHAS and the state
Department of Children and Families (DCF)
reached out to the academic centers at the Univer-
sity of Connecticut and Yale University to for
disaster mental health consultation. The state-
academic partnership began to organize the sponta-
neously mobilizing behavioral health professionals
within the first week following September 11th.
11.2.7.2 Public education and outreach
Immediately following September 11, CTRP
faculty consulted with DMHAS, DCF, and a public
relations firm in order to develop public service
materials, media presentations, and fact sheets that
informed the entire State population (Fan, 2002)
about expectable behavioral health sequelae of
this complex disaster and its aftermath, and about
ways to seek help and resources available to
provide help. This coordinated public informa-
tion campaign reached every area of Connecticut
within the first three months following September
11, 2001 through statewide and local media, in
Spanish as well as English language. Collabora-
tion with public health, public safety, emergency
management, and behavioral heath providers or
agencies in designing and implementing media
campaigns reduced the amount of inaccurate and
conflicting information that could have led to
11.2.7.1 Initial training
Connecticut's initial full-day behavioral health
disaster response training on September 16th drew
upon curricula previously developed for a national
network of disaster mental health teams in the
Department of Veteran's Affairs [22] and of crisis
response teams working in schools and with police
agencies by the Yale Child Study Center. Atten-
dees were deployed as a
de facto
virtual behav-
ioral health crisis response and recovery team
(CRRT) under the coordination of DMHAS and
DCF to serve as contacts for evacuees and bereaved
families, to staff Connecticut's outreach services
to survivors and family members in New York
City, to assist Connecticut emergency responders
following deployment to New York City, and to
