CJHS410 Mental Health and Crisist Interventions Psychological Support Agency

Psychological Support Agency

CJHS/410 Mental Health and Crisist Interventions

Psychological Support Agency

Support agencies within the police, fire departments, and federal level are what make the criminal justice system work. With the work of detectives, we would not be able to consider so many cases, without the different support departments within detective agencies we would be so behind on all cases that agents would burn out and no be able to complete any case leaving the victim and their families with no answers. In this essay, we will discuss the ideal psychological support agency to respond to a national catastrophic event; we will discuss the size of the agency, qualifications and skill of the employees, services that are provided by the agency. We will also discuss the key components of the agency and its overarching mission and finally we will talk about how the agency can work with other organizations and what role the criminal justice system would play in this agency.

Size of the agency

When dealing with a catastrophic event the main thing that matters is the size of the department you have on your side to help the citizens within your communities. During Hurricane Katrin thousands of people lost their homes, to move those people to Houston and other cities they had to have busses, trains, and other forms of transportation getting them out of harm’s way. Not only did they have to get them out but they had to make sure that the Mayors and Governors of those other states were ok with the people going to their cities and states.

The size of our agency would have to start with 1,500 people blocking roads and ensuring that the people that are within the danger zone are moved as quickly as possible. Then you would have to have triage centers to help the wounded along with another zone for the fatally wounded people. The locations with the fatally wounded people would have to sanitized and away from everyone so that anything that might be harmful to living people can be kept away. We will also have to have 1,500 will ensure that nothing else happens like riots, they will be highly trained and skilled psychologist to provide counseling for anyone who was affected or who feels they need to speak someone. They will be available 7 days a week 24 hour a day so there will have to at least 300 people or more rotating in case of an emergency and to also to ensure the counselors do not burn out their selves.

Qualifications and skills

The skills and qualifications needed to help in case of a catastrophic event would be psychological counseling, in the case of a mass shooting we would need people that can speak to the survivors and the families of the victims as well as the suspects. If the shooting was at a high school, college, or even a mall we would have to have to support school counselors who are not trained in dealing with these types of events. If is a natural disaster like a hurricane, severe flooding, or wild fire we would need different types of support. We would need police, fire, EMS and still have to have counselors on site to help, we would also have to have search parties once everything has calmed down, we could also use people to help the police, firefighters and EMS recover when they come back to ground zero. Be it handing out water or giving them a note from their family.

Services provided

Some of the services we will provide will be therapeutic counseling, like child therapist that can explain what happened and why they might have to move or leave their house and or school for a while. There will also be financial counselors that will assist families as they relocate, we cannot depend on the government to move fast and provide them with homes, clothing and food so we will have funds set aside to aide those in need. Guidance counselors will keep in touch with the displaced families and assist them in the future to get back in school and also to find a new job or something that will give them the funds to survive. We will also have mental health counsellors that will assist those might have a family member who is not good with moving, such as someone who is autistic, they do not like change and if we have a counselor that can help with that it will make the move a lot better.

Key components of the agency

The key components of the agency are to assist citizens in relocating and getting back to the norm of things, they will be responsible for organizing and managing resources within the communities such as supplies from other states and from the federal government. There will be a department that will deal with any secondary disasters such as riots and looting. We will also have certain individuals who will be in charge of cleaning up as in making sure everyone has a follow up, all citizens who were displaced for any reason have been spoken to and their information has been taken down so that they can contacted in the near future about returning or what they have planned for their future.

Overarching mission

The mission of our agency will not only be to help the people who are in need but those who are in the communities in the surrounding areas that were not affected by the disaster. Assuming that a hurricane in Houston will not affect Dallas is a farfetched idea, Texas in a whole will be affected as will Oklahoma, Louisiana and as far as Mississippi. Our mission to serve and protect the citizens within our communities. We will assist in anything we can, be it finance, housing, or clothing for school. We will not let anyone leave without feeling all their questions have been answered and they understand everything that is given to them in pamphlet or verbally. We will allow everyone the opportunity to ask a question and there will be no question or thought unanswered, we will stick with them to the end and when and if they come back to our communities we will make sure they are taken care of still.

How the agency can work with other organizations

Working with other organizations is key to making any agency work. We cannot keep to ourselves the resources we have in fear that someone will take what we have. We have to be open and help everyone, if there is hurricane we need to count on other states to stand up next to us and help us out. Taking in our citizens and coming together to fix our communities are the only ways we can rebuild and get back to where we need to be. Just like Habitat for Humanity comes together to build houses and rebuild communities, FEMA gives out money to those who have been severely affected as in they do not have a house or clothing or anything else. These are the places and people we need to come to our community and help us.

Criminal justice systems role in this agency

The criminal justice systems work with everything, our community cannot rebuild itself, to get back to where we need to be we have to understand that not all people are going to just leave peacefully, there will always be those who feel they cannot be helped because they had no money to begin with, but we will make sure they are heard and that they know that no matter what we will take care of their, their children, and even their pets. Keeping a family together will only make a community stronger and if we cannot keep the family happy we cannot have a happy community. Although some people do not trust people who work within the criminal justice system we must show them that they are friends; not foe. They are here to help and to make a difference not cause problems, whatever they might have done in the past is the past, we can move on and be stronger.

In conclusion, our agency will work with all communities to ensure if a national catastrophic event occurs we can stand up strong and help everyone no matter what the situation is. We will depend on each other to come together not only as a community but as a family that is willing to work with anyone and everyone to get us back to where we need to be. There is no fire, hurricane or storm that can tear a community apart because we will work together no matter what and help every man, woman, and child get back into their home or an even better home.