Disaster Relief Management

SCPS Presents:

Disaster Relief Management:
Community Resiliency Model (DRM–CRM®) Preparation Program

A Trauma-Informed, Community-Centered Framework for Disaster Mental Health Response

ONLINE: Thursday, February 19th | 7pm – 8:30pm

Featuring our Speakers:
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW
Michael Sapp, PhD

Purpose

The Community Resiliency Model (CRM) equips communities with biologically based, trauma-informed skills that support nervous system regulation and emotional stabilization before, during, and after disasters. As a public-health model, it strengthens community capacity when professional mental health resources become overwhelmed.

What CRM Provides: Practical Skills Across the Lifespan

A Biological, Skills-Based Approach

CRM teaches survivors to:

• Recognize common biological responses to disaster
• Increase interoceptive awareness (“body literacy”)
• Notice sensations of well-being
• Use simple wellness skills to reduce autonomic reactivity

This helps shift the internal narrative from “I’m weak and not coping” to “I’m having a normal biological reaction to an abnormal event.”

Trauma-Sensitive Conversation Tools for Clinicians

CRM integrates into psychiatric and psychotherapeutic encounters through strength-based, regulating questions such as:

• “What is helping you get through right now?”
• “Can you remember the moment you realized you would survive?”
• “Can you remember when help first arrived?”

These questions reduce physiological distress and help survivors reconnect with internal resources—summarized by one participant who said, “Thank you for reminding me of what I already knew but had forgotten.”

How Psychiatrists Can Apply CRM – Psychiatrists can:

• Integrate CRM language and skills during evaluations and follow-up
• Normalize biological responses to trauma and stress
• Coordinate care with CRM-trained community partners
• Support prevention-focused disaster mental health strategies
• Encourage family use of CRM through the iChill app (English, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic; Korean and Simplified Chinese coming soon) or through Community Resiliency Model workshops being offered in the community and through LA County Department of Mental Health.

Speaker Bios:
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW
Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW is a trauma therapist, author, international lecturer, and social entrepreneur. She is the Founder and Executive Director Emerita of the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI) and the key developer of the Community Resiliency Model® (CRM) and Trauma Resiliency Model® (TRM), biologically based approaches to trauma healing used worldwide. She is a contributor to Psychology Today, the host of Resiliency Within on VoiceAmerica, and a consultant in trauma- and resilience-informed care to international organizations. She is also a founding member of the International Transformational Resiliency Coalition, advancing trauma-informed responses to climate change and global adversity. The second edition of her book, Building Resiliency to Trauma, the Community and Trauma Resiliency Models (2023) was published by Routledge. Committed to global equity, Elaine has launched community-based healing projects to support populations during and after natural and human-made disasters. She fosters culturally responsive trauma-recovery and capacity-building initiatives, empowering local leaders to develop sustainable, grassroots solutions.

Michael Sapp, Ph.D.
Michael Sapp, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and serves as Executive Director of the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI), where he has been actively involved since 2010. As a member of TRI’s Senior Faculty, he has taught the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM)® and Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® to clinicians, educators, first responders, and community leaders across the United States and around the world. A notable aspect of Dr. Sapp’s work lies in his keen interest in neuroscientific approaches to trauma healing, having co-authored “The Nervous System, Memory, and Trauma” in Building Resilience to Trauma: The Trauma and Community Resiliency Models and the peer-reviewed article “The Body Can Balance the Score.” His work spans domestic and international settings, including humanitarian initiatives for communities in Angola, Ukraine, Nepal, the Philippines, Turkey, and Northern Ireland, advancing culturally responsive, community-based pathways to resilience and healing.

 SCPS Members: Please register from the link in your email.