Sept. 11: ‘Disaster Mental Health Responses in the Era of Global Upheaval’ is topic of presentation at Minnesota State Mankato

Wednesday, September 11, 2024
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Ostrander Auditorium

Mankato, Minn. – Minnesota State University, Mankato Professor Emeritus Walter Roberts Jr., a disaster mental health responder for the American Red Cross, will discuss “Disaster Mental Health Responses in the Era of Global Upheaval” in a free public workshop Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. in Ostrander Auditorium, located in the University’s Centennial Student Union.

A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.

Roberts will share his personal observations from his American Red Cross deployments to areas that have been affected by natural disasters, with an emphasis on the impacts of disasters to rural and underserved populations.

There will also be an open session on the same topic Thursday, Sept. 12 from 12-1 p.m. on campus in Armstrong Hall, Room 108.

Roberts provided the following additional information on disaster mental health and rural communities:

“Though rural population density is low, the vast majority of disasters occur in rural America, areas underserved by health care professionals. Factors impacting access to health care responses following disasters include economic instability, transportation to and from sources available for recovery, parochial misgivings about accepting assistance from the outside, and general lack of existing health care services before disaster strikes (LADRC, 2023). After immediate disaster responses, rural communities are left with having to deal with the aftermath of destruction coupled with the disaster-imposed ruin of what minimal health care resources were lost due to the event.

“Understanding the immediate and residual impacts that these events have on individuals, families, and communities—particularly on mental health—is essential for those serving such populations and the focus of the workshop.”

For more information about the event, please contact Tracy Peed, associate professor in Minnesota State Mankato’s Department of Counseling & School Personnel, at 507-389-5240, or tracy.peed@mnsu.edu.

Sponsors of the lecture are the Department of Counseling & Student Personnel in the University’s College of Education and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Center for Rural Behavioral Health.

Minnesota State Mankato, a comprehensive university with 14,635 students, is part of the Minnesota State system, which includes 26 colleges and seven universities.