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Media Advisory:  Sept 1, 2005
Further information: John Stein, NOVA Director of Public Affairs
For Immediate Release
john@trynova.org, 503-554-1552, fax 503-554-1532

The National Crisis Response Team of the National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) is taking emotional first-aid to people devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

The first volunteers from NOVA's Florida Crisis Response Team will arrive in Mississippi on Friday, Septenber 2, to begin planning for the scores of NOVA teams to follow. The 600 Florida Crisis Response Team members know what it is like to need help. At their request, NOVA orchestrated hundreds of volunteers from other states to assist their Florida colleagues in 2004 after four back-to-back hurricanes battered the state – and overwhelmed its Crisis Response Team (CRT) resources. Now, Florida has a chance to return the favor.

During those weeks last year, over 100 team members worked at FEMA’s many Disaster Recovery Centers. They used their primary skills in crisis intervention with groups and with individuals, often indirectly, while talking to residents signing up for help at the Centers. The teams going to the Gulf Coast will perform the same services – and hope to earn once more the high praise from FEMA’s Center directors.

The Florida advance team will be followed by teams going to Mississippi and Louisiana early next week, and then by one to Alabama. Team members who follow will work with individuals and small groups to provide emotional support and spiritual care – and with fellow disaster workers when the trauma of others begins to afflict them.

NOVA knows that food, shelter and clothing are of immediate importance, but thereafter helping people cope with the psychological pain of the disaster calls for skilled intervention – an important part of the total relief services to come. "Our colleagues in disaster organizations rebuild homes and serve nutritious meals and water. We help rebuild people's resiliency and give them some sense of hope for the future," said Jeannette Adkins, NOVA's Executive Director.

All NOVA's CRT members are volunteers who have graduated from NOVA's intensive training institutes. Their services are free; NOVA pays for their travel, lodging and meals, all of which must be covered by past and anticipated donations and grants.

Crisis response teams are composed of members from a variety of professional disciplines, including crime victim services, the clergy, psychology, law enforcement, social work, and firefighting.

The National CRT program experience is deep. Starting on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, NOVA teams responded to the attacks at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Through the ten months to follow, rotating teams worked with families traumatized by the attacks at the World Trade Center – not to mention distressed colleagues at the WTC site, from law enforcement and fire personnel to the construction workers, all of whom worked 12-hour, seven-day shifts. NOVA sent a total of 700 volunteers to the 9/11 sites.

In earlier years, NOVA crisis response volunteers responded in large numbers to such diverse disasters as Hurricane Andrew, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the massive earthquake in Kobe, Japan. In these and all other deployments, the NOVA teams work only upon the invitation of local disaster managers, and always in collaboration with colleague organizations in the disaster response community and with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

NOVA is an active member of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, where NOVA Deputy Director Cheryl Guidry Tyiska served as President in 2003-2004.

NOVA will continue to provide updates to the Hurricane Katrina response on NOVA’s website – www.trynova.org.

Coping With Hurricane Katrina & Rita:
For those who have an immediate involvement with people who have been killed or injured, the following may be useful:

NOVA's Hurricane Katrina & Rita Response & Information: