LOUISIANA Community Mental Health Services Block Grant ...

SAMHSA/FEMA also required CCPs to collect information to provide a narrative history-a record
of program activities, accomplishments and expenditures. Louisiana Spirit collected data on a
weekly basis from all providers which was analyzed by the Quality Assurance Analyst and also sent
to SAMHSA for further analysis and comparison with data from all the other Immediate Services
Program and Regular services Program Crisis Counseling Programs in the nation. The different
service areas also compiled a narrative report to Louisiana Spirit headquarters on a bi-weekly basis.
From Gustav‟s inception in September 2008 through January 12, 2010 a total of 514,535 face-toface
services were provided. 97,681 of these were individual contacts lasting over 15 minutes,
335,650 of these were brief contacts lasting less than 15 minutes and 81,204 contacts were
classified as participants in groups.
To help to monitor geographic dispersion/reach/engagement, the number of individual and group
counseling encounters for a given week/month/quarter were tallied by zip code and displayed
graphically as a check of whether communities were being reached in accord with the program plan
and community composition. To monitor demographic dispersion/reach/engagement, the individual
encounter data was broken down by race, ethnicity and preferred language as one indicator of how
well the program was reaching and engaging targeted populations.
Federal funding for the Louisiana Spirit Gustav program ended June 30, 2010; all direct services
ceased January 12, 2010. The time from mid-January through June was spent fiscally and
programmatically closing out the program.
Louisiana Spirit Oil Spill Recovery Program
After the Deep Water Horizon/British Petroleum Oil Spill off the Louisiana coastline on April 20,
2010, the State of Louisiana anticipated that the slowly unfolding disaster would have mental,
emotional and behavioral health tolls on the lives of residents who had been impacted. The State
decided to utilize 1.1 million of the 25 million dollars given to each coastal state through the Oil
Spill Liability Trust Fund to provide crisis counseling services to those impacted. The decision was
made to utilize a program design similar to what had been funded by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster
Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The Louisiana Spirit Coastal Recovery Counseling Program
design was modeled after the successful Louisiana Spirit Hurricane Recovery Program which is
described above.
The Louisiana Spirit Coastal Recovery Counseling Program utilized dyad teams to reach out to
residents and workers who were dealing with the aftermath of the oil spill. Community outreach is
the primary method of delivering crisis counseling services and it consists primarily of face-to-face
contact with survivors in their natural environments in order to provide disaster-related crisis
counseling services. Crisis counseling services include: Information/Education Dissemination,
Psychological First Aid, Crisis/Trauma Counseling, Grief & Loss Counseling, Supportive
Counseling, Resiliency Support, Psychosocial Education, and Community Level Education &
Training. In addition to the crisis counseling and information and referral sources, the program also
utilized the media to provide messaging regarding services available after the oil spill.
Workers reached out where fishermen, individuals, families and others affected by the oil spill were
likely to be found. Geographically, this includes the southeast parishes of Jefferson, Lafourche,
Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and Terrebonne. The sites where workers who were impacted
were seen included: oil spill claims centers, oil spill recovery sites where workers congregated,
animal recovery sites, emergency operations centers, resource distribution sites, businesses which
PART C LOUISIANA FY 2011 PAGE 99
SECTION III: ADULT PLAN – CRITERION 1
COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY-BASED MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES -- SYSTEM OF CARE & AVAILABLE SERVICES