San Bernardino County
Deploys AID
WORKERS To Hurricane Victims
San
Bernardino County is sending up to 18 mental health professionals to
communities devastated by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, under an action by the
Board of Supervisors.
“In times
of crisis, Americans always band together,” Board Chairman Robert A. Lovingood
said. “On behalf of the People of San Bernardino County, this is our way of
helping those who are hurting during this trying time.”
The Supervisors’ approval ratified an action
taken by Chairman Lovingood on September 7th, after the American Red Cross
put out a call for trained volunteers. In response, the Department of
Behavioral Health staff members that possess the appropriate qualifications,
volunteered. Through this humanitarian response, staff will be able to utilize
their crisis response skill set while at the same time receive further training
that can then be shared with other County departments.
Veronica
Kelley, Director of County Behavioral Health, said the department has been providing
crisis intervention services in the field throughout the County of San
Bernardino since 2005.
“The
degree of knowledge and experience clinical staff have in critical incident
debrief and management, crisis intervention and trauma resilience as well as
the lived experience of providing crisis services to residents … make them
valuable to any disaster response,” Kelley said. “They will be able to share
from past experience while bringing back to SBC lessons learned from current
traumatic events to better inform future responses.”
The experience of helping disaster victims will
strengthen San Bernardino County’s emergency response to future disasters. The
County will seek reimbursement.
In other action, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors
approved an agreement that allows the Town of Apple Valley to use County
supplies for emergency animal cruelty cases. The Supervisors also, formally
accepted 5,000 micro-chips valued at $28,239 donated by Animals aRe First Fund
(ARRF). The micro-chips will be used for pets adopted from County Animal Care
and Control shelters and at no cost to the adopting pet owners. Micro-chipping
a pet can assist the owner to locate their lost pet quickly. Micro-chips offer
a safe method to identify the owner of a micro-chipped animal by utilizing a
unique identification number, which is assigned to the respective micro-chip.