Supporting Psychosocial Response to Radiological Incidents : The Role of Family Assistance Centers

1
Supporting Psychosocial Response to Radiological
Incidents The Role of Family Assistance Centers

• Onora Lien, MA
• Health Systems Response Planner
• King County Healthcare Coalition
• Public Health Seattle King County

2
Overview

• Overview of Family Assistance Centers
• Planning recommendations
• Unique aspects of radiological incidents

3
Family Assistance

• Family Assistance is
• Information and support (mental health, spiritual
  care, human needs, crime victims assistance)
  provided to families/loved ones/survivors of the
  injured and deceased
• Reunification of family members with their
  missing or deceased loved ones

4
Family Assistance Centers

• Established during mass casualty or mass fatality
  incidents
• A centralized location where loved ones will
  gather to gain information and assistance
• Provides a safe and secure reception place for
  family and friends of victims
• Could have more virtual/telephonic component
• Helps facilitate coordinated information-sharing
  between families and officials/response agencies
  (e.g. ME/C, LE, ARC)
• Best practice in an emergency/disaster response
• Legislated in some incidents
• Differs from Disaster Assistance/Disaster
  Services Centers

5
FAC Activities

• Information sharing on missing/deceased loved
  ones
• Coordination on missing persons, patient
  tracking, victim identifications, other
  reunification efforts
• Briefings related to response and recovery
  efforts
• Information on identification processes
• Collecting antemortem information to assist with
  identification
• Notifications (about location or confirmed death)
• Call center
• Mental health and spiritual care support
• Immediate human needs assistance
• First aid, food, shelter

6
FAC Activities

• Coordinating family tour of incident site
• After death support activities
• Personal effects return, human remains release,
  death certificate or funeral support
• Legal, financial, other social services

7
Supporting Behavioral Health

• Those being served at FAC are population of
  concern for being at risk for developing
  psychiatric disorders or dysfunction post
  incident
• Traumatic loss
• Separation from loved one
• Functions of FAC may serve to help mitigate some
  stressors post disaster
• Provides forum for timely information sharing and
  meeting immediate needs
• Helps to facilitate reunification with loved ones
• Availability of mental health and spiritual care
  support
• Important to incorporate robust triage and
  assessment capabilities as a part of FAC
  operations and strategically allocate available
  mental health and spiritual care resources

8
Initial Planning Considerations

• Lead agency and response partners
• Core functions for FAC
• Protocol/process for coordinating
  missing/unaccounted for persons reports
• Coordination with Law Enforcement
• Coordination with hospitals/patient tracking
• Coordination with ARC or other family
  reunification activities
• Integration with behavioral health response
  activities
• Triage, assessment, referral and ongoing support
• Protocol for collecting antemortem
  information/conducting family interviews

9
It takes a team

• Potential Planning Partners
• Local Health Department
• Social/Human Services
• Mental Health
• Coroner/Medical Examiner
• Law Enforcement and/or FBI
• Hospitals/Healthcare
• Emergency Management
• Chaplains/Spiritual Care providers
• American Red Cross/Salvation Army/voluntary
  agencies
• Social/Human Services
• Interpreters/Translators

• Public Information Officers
• Office of Victims of Crime
• FEMA
• NDMS/DMORT
• Department of State
• NTSB
• Relevant private sector/corporate partners

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Challenges during Radiological Incidents

• Nature of radiological incident heightens public
  concern and anxiety
• May add to psychological stress
• Information sharing challenges
• Heightened media interest
• Possible criminal nature of incident
• Response, recovery and victim identification may
  be delayed
• Need for coordination with evacuation,
  decontamination, screening activities
• How do you coordinate or integrate Family
  Assistance Center operations with Community
  Reception Center activities?

11
Family Assistance During Disasters

• Supporting victims families is a critical
  component of overall response
• It is essential to facilitating overall community
  resilience and recovery
• Flexibility and adaptability is key!
• You cant fix it, you cant make it better, but
  you can provide one positive memory to carry with
  them out of this horrible experience. Kathryn
  Turman, Director of FBI Office of Victim
  Assistance