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Read more about the need for mental health services and jobs: Time 7/29/10 WDSU 7/28/10 CNN Health 7/26/10 New York Times 7/12/10 CNN Health 7/9/10 AC360 Blog 7/7/10 AC360 Blog 6/29/10 CNN Saturday Morning News 6/26/10 Mother Jones 6/25/10 Louisiana Seafood Newsroom 6/23/10 USA Today 6/18/10

The immediate ramifications of the oil spill and the long-term impact will result in mental health problems for the residents of St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Orleans parishes reports Michelle Many, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Professor in LSU’s Department of Psychiatry. The recent oil spill has already brought a blow to the prolonged recovery from Katrina, and LSU clinicians report that residents are suffering from re-traumatization. “Much research has shown that people who have a history of PTSD (as a quarter of Katrina survivors do), have an increased risk to develop PTSD again.”

Uncertainty about the scope of the spill and the impact on residents’ livelihoods, is causing increased stress. Receiving assistance checks makes many fishers feel a sense of shame. These feelings, along with the loss and anxiety about the worsening situation in the Gulf, can be triggers for major depression, anxiety and other acute mental health problems. Finally, because many shrimpers and fisherman are self-employed, they do not have health insurance and cannot afford to seek services from the other mental health providers in the community.

Via focus groups, we have learned:

1. fishermen are desperately afraid that they will not be able to support their families, and that generation-surviving employment, lifestyle and recreational pursuits will be forever foreclosed;
2. fishermen are staying away from home because they fear they will contaminate their families if they participate in cleanup and because they do not know how to healthily communicate with their family members about their anguish;
3. wives/partners do not know how to communicate with their husbands/partners to allay their own fears or to soothe/comfort their husbands;
4. suicidal ideations, debilitating anxiety and depression are increasing dramatically for people whose lives intertwine with a water-based culture; and
5. residents are amenable to receiving mental health and wellness services because they know that their current mental status will further debilitate them.

1. Conduct training and provide support for a Peer-to-Peer wellness and counseling program using a model that was effective post 911 in NYC;
2. Provide 42 additional clinical hours of free licensed mental health and wellness services
(one-on-one and group sessions) in current Chalmette location of our Center for Wellness and Mental Health;
3. Replicate our Center for Wellness and Mental Health in Lower St. Bernard and in Plaquemines Parish and provide at least 70 clinical hours each week in each location;
4. Hire wives and family members of fishermen to conduct community outreach and referral services.