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State Emergency Management Agency Hiring Mental Health Coordinator

This is a first — for me.

Florida hires mental health coordinator to respond to hurricanes, natural disasters.

The article above calls out the establishment of a mental health coordinator's position — within an emergency management agency. I don't know of any other state that has such a position. Usually these types of positions are with the American Red Cross or the local public health agency or a health and human services type of agency.

Likely the need for such a position, internal to emergency management, was an outcome from all the disasters that Florida has experienced and the significant mental health challenges, like domestic abuse, that become an outcome of the disaster during the recovery period. 

Will more states follow? The only other state I can think of might be California because of the size of their organization and then also the number of disasters that they experience.

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.