Fluent Essays

What do you think it takes to be a qualitatively effective Disaster Mental Health responder?1. What kinds of character traits and skills seem necessary? 2. What kinds of character traits and even skill sets might present barriers to being effective? 3. Now, consider if you were in this role. What traits or skills do you think you possess that would be helpful in it? Or, for what role do you see yourself better suited? Do you feel that there would be certain aspects of that role that might be especially challenging for you personally?*Please put some effort into this, as it is actually one of two reflections for which you will be graded. This post will require more intensive consideration, effort, and even research. Please include references at the end. Do not post any answers as an attached document, but include the text directly in the thread. Are you surprised by any of your classmates’ reactions? Why or why not? Did someone raise a necessary skill or character trait that you hadnt thought about for that role? GuidelinesPlease be sure to follow these guidelines for this discussion:This post does not have to be any particular length or style, but it does need to respond to all of the prompts.You must respond to at least three (3) classmates but you may respond to more if you feel inclined.Please include any references at the end of this post.Please do not post any responses as an attached document; include the text directly in the thread.please use: Grammarly, avoid plagiarism, use American English language, and avoid passive voice.My classmates are attached below. responses.docx Unformatted Attachment Preview 1- Ibrahim: A major disaster requires competent people to respond to mental health effectively. Competencies for this kind of role require personal characteristics such as motivation, traits, and self-concept. Responders who have experience in dealing with disasters are considered to have particular traits such as adaptability, a sense of humor, flexibility, patience, and being productive in actual emergencies. It is also essential for a responder to have attributes that cannot be instilled through training. Therefore, competency does not entirely rely on education and training. King et al. (2010) state that critical characteristic in a responder who is competent in disaster mental health is that they are not limited in knowledge and skills, which must include in disaster training. Some attributes cannot be instilled through disaster training. Qualities like patience are challenging to teach, and if a responder lacks it, it becomes ineffective in disaster mental health. Some responders may be unable to adapt to the conditions they have been sent to serve. Lack of adaptability traits lowers effectiveness, thus affecting their performance. It, therefore, presents a barrier to disaster mental health if the responders are not flexible. Flexibility is an outstanding personality trait for a responder to have as different victims are handled differently, and every disaster is different from the other. A responder should also be accommodative, and lacking this trait will hinder their effectiveness in disaster mental health. I believe that I have a personal trait of being helpful in any task given. Therefore, as a responder, I would be very useful by offering my services more than the expected standards, to achieve the intended results. Having a sense of humor is also one of my traits, and it would be crucial as I will be accommodative and easy to talk to and lift moods of the victims. Stress management would be a challenge to me as the environment present is tense on a regular basis, and there is the fear of being seen as weak since it will show that you are not up to the job. Reference King, R., North, C., Larkin, G., Downs, D., Klein, K., & Fowler, R. et al. (2010). Attributes of Effective Disaster Responders: Focus Group Discussions With Key Emergency Response Leaders. Retrieved 22 May 2020, from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-healthpreparedness/article/attributes-of-effective-disaster-responders-focus-groupdiscussions-with-key-emergency-responseleaders/4B0BCA824BD3B0CC0407A961709BEE71 2- Elton Disaster mental health (DMH) requires compassion, patience, creativity, communication, and determination to let survivor express their grief and decrease the level of anxiety. DMH workers should start off building a rapport with the person to feel comfortable, such as small talk. This helps the survivor to relax and further expand their emotions. However, the DMH worker must take it step by step in not being overwhelmed by the survivor’s emotions. According to Halpren and Tramotin (2007), good self-care and maintain boundaries in order to provide sympathy while continuing to have a professional identity. To be an ineffective DMH worker would be the complete opposite of the requirements mentioned in the paragraph above. Being insensitive, impatient, and arrogant of the survivors mental health problems can lead to neglecting their needs and feelings. This can create the survivor to not openly be vulnerable due to the fear of being judged or hurt. The character traits and skills I can see myself portrayed as a DMH worker are compassion and patience. The only way this can be relatable for me was during my time as a behavior technician, or interventionist. It was a good experience to learn about children’s behaviors in autism spectrum disorder. It developed my skills to patiently build rapport with the child and show compassion when educating them to overcome or adapt, certain behaviors, such as being aggressive or have tantrums. It always puts a smile on my face when a child progresses from negative to positive behaviors. Thus, experience utilizing compassion and patience, I believe, can further be helpful as a DMH worker. The only challenge for the role of a DMH worker, in my opinion, is setting your boundaries. When listening to the survivor’s experience, you want to empathize with them but not provide a comparison of your own life experience. Even though the connection is essential to build rapport with the survivor, separating personal life and career as a DMH worker displays the right practice decisions. Halpern, J., & Tramontin, M. (2007). Disaster mental health: Theory and practice. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole 3- Mohammed Surviving a disaster do have serious mental health (MH) consequences on victims, detailed in a growing body of literature (Norris et al., 2002). Disaster Mental Health responder (DMH) should have self-awareness because otherwise, he can not help other people. Also, he should be empathetic with the people affected by the disaster. The DMH responder should not be self-oriented, but rather be open to different cultures, religious or social groups. For instance, the DMH responder should bear in mind that urban, suburban, and rural areas have different needs, resources, traditions, and values about giving and receiving help. It is essential that he also considers his patients ethnicity and culture and provide services that are culturally relevant and in the language of his patient. The DMH responder should also have a degree of personal integrity, and self-control and all his actions should inspire confidence so that he gains his patients trust. Social intelligence, in my opinion, is the most important trait to be an effective DMH responder. On the other hand, the DMH worker may suffer from psychological distress not only through the direct experience of traumatic situations but also through the indirect process of aiding disaster victims. This distress, called secondary traumatic stress, is linked to dispositional empathy, which is the tendency for individuals to imagine and experience the feelings and experiences of others (Nagamine et al., 2018). The DMH workers themselves may be disaster-exposed, prompting attention to his stress symptoms and self-care (Norris et al., 2002). For instance, relationships between secondary traumatic stress (STS) symptoms and therapist characteristics and assignment variables were examined for 81 disaster mental health (DMH) workers who responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Higher STS was associated with therapist variables of heavier prior trauma caseload, less professional experience, youth, and therapists discussion of his or her trauma or trauma work in his or her therapy. The therapist gender and personal trauma history were not significantly related to STS. Assignment variables associated with higher STS included the longer length of assignment and more time spent with child clients, firefighters (who suffered significant losses in the tragedy), or clients who discussed morbid material (Creamer, T. L., & Liddle, B. J.,2005). Besides, a key concern is whether and how a worker in challenging disaster contexts establish a pattern of mindfulness practice and whether this practice is associated with symptom outcomes over time. (Hansel et al. 2011). As to if I was to take the role of the DMH responder, I like listening to others, and especially my friends, they say I am the repository of their secrets. It is not uncommon for a person I have recently met to tell me his secrets. Some times it surprises me that someone would tell me his big secret, shocking secret actually. Besides, I have a passion for helping others. One lesson I learned from life is that I should one day drive some people to walk because some times people helped me, and even if this did not happen, I still want to help people because, to me, it is key to real happiness. However, these skills do not necessarily qualify me to become the DMH responder. I lack the required knowledge, training, and experience as well as the interpersonal skills to reenact different characters, to keep a poker face, to deal with DMH patients, which is a significant skill in the DMH responding process. References Creamer, T. L., & Liddle, B. J. (2005). Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Disaster Mental Health Workers Responding to the September 11 Attacks. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 18(1), 89–96. https://doi-org.ezproxy.philau.edu/10.1002/jts.20008 (Links to an external site.) Nagamine, M., Shigemura, J., Fujiwara, T., Waki, F., Tanichi, M., Saito, T., . . . Shimizu, K. (2018). The relationship between dispositional empathy, psychological distress, and posttraumatic stress responses among Japanese uniformed disaster workers: A crosssectional study. BMC Psychiatry, 18. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.philau.edu/10.1186/s12888-018-1915-4 (Links to an external site.) Norris, F. H., Perilla, J. L., Riad, J. K., Kaniasty, K., & Lavizzo, E. A. (1999). Stability and change in stress, resources, and psychological distress following natural disaster: findings from Hurricane Andrew. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 12(4), 363–396. Retrieved from: https://www-tandfonlinecom.ezproxy.philau.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/10615809908249317 (Links to an external site.) Norris, F.H., Friedman, M.J., Watson, P.J. (2002). 60,000 disaster victims speak: Part II. Summary and implications of the disaster. Mental Health Research Psychiatry, 65 (2002), pp. 240-260 Hansel, T. C., Osofsky, H. J., Steinberg, A. M., Brymer, M. J., Landis, R., Riise, K. S., et al. (2011). Louisiana spirit specialized crisis counseling: counselor perceptions of training and services. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 3, 276–282. Retrieved from: https://doi-org.ezproxy.philau.edu/10.1037/a0024644 (Links to an external site.) . ... Purchase answer to see full attachment