Responding to Individuals and Communities After Disasters and Other Traumatic Events: An Introduction

Public service psychologists are often at the forefront of responding to communities affected by disasters, violence, and other traumatic events. Through prevention efforts, risk management and treatment response interventions practiced in prisons, military installations, law enforcement, Veterans Affairs (VA) centers, state hospitals, and schools, public service psychologists offer care to those impacted. This introduction provides an overview of articles culled from a call for papers focusing on theoretical and empirical explorations of organized responses to traumatic events. The thirteen papers presented here are organized into two sections of articles illustrating two broad groupings of response—those that are immediate and those produced through a lengthier evaluation process. Public sector psychologists are an innovative and nimble workforce who can immediately meet urgent service delivery needs. They are also well equipped to perform the lengthier research and evaluation tasks that can be used to benefit service delivery responses during future events. From across these two groupings, an array of papers are presented, from psychological and mental health first aid to other innovative programs that offer an organized response to individuals and communities after traumatic events, including the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The range of interventions offered by public service psychologists to individuals and communities in an increasing number of traumatic events suggests that the field is pacing itself to meet this growing need.