Disaster Relief Management

February 19 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm PST

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

Speakers: TBA

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.

More information will be announced soon.  SCPS Members, please save the date!