More than a year after South Carolina’s historic flood, crisis counselors from the state Department of Mental Health’s Carolina United program continue to find and help flood victims. But hearing the woes of thousands of victims over a long period can have detrimental effects on the counselors as well, sometimes producing stress or depression.
Carolina United is an organization that sends members into communities, going door-to-door in search of people affected by the flood in any way and putting them in touch with resources that can best help their needs. Those resources can help with home damage, lost cars, grief counseling, substance abuse problems and much more. Since the flood, Carolina United has helped upwards of 30,000 get the help they need.
Hearing these devastating stories day after day can begin to cause stress and depression in the counselors. Counselor Essie Garner says, “Just knowing that you could go home at night, and there were others who could not… A lot of prayer went up, for myself as well as the survivors.” Fortunately, Carolina United also assists its counselors the best way it can. “As a team, we talked about ourselves,” Garner explains. “We did self-care for ourselves as well. They gave us an opportunity to just have some down time.”
A big help in dealing with counselor stress or depression is Carolina United’s location. According to Mental Health Program Manager William Wells, they place programs like Carolina United in mental health centers so they can use the offices. “It puts them in touch with trained clinicians who can pick up on things,” Wells says, adding that they can “bring it to the supervisor’s attention if they feel it’s necessary.”
Considering all the potential stress and depression this program could cause counselors, why do it? “All of us are those that want to be helping professionally,” Counselor Lewis Hicks explains. “We’re caring, we’re concerned, we want to make a difference.” That care and concern applies to not only the victims of the flood, but also to the other counselors. “We talk about stress, we take breaks, we learn how to relax,” Hicks says. “We share our problems and concerns when it seems like we’re not able to get some form of resolution to whatever the concern or situation may be.”
Carolina United also takes practical measures to alieve stress from its counselors. They rotate groups to different communities in order to give counselors a break if there’s a community more devastated or impacted than another.
It’s not just the counselors in the field who are at risk of stress and depression. Carolina United also operates a phone bank that receives calls daily. William Wells explains, “We’ve even had people who are on the phones for two or three shifts and were saying, ‘we need some mental health support in this room to deal with some of the things we’re hearing about.’”
Despite the stresses of the job, for the counselors, it’s all worth it. There are always resources available for those in need. Counselor Essie Garner says, “As long as I’ve got hope to give them, there’s hope. So that gives me a good sense of feeling.”
Carolina United counselors have also guided their clients to ongoing services. A one-stop phone number for assistance is 211. Those in need can also go online to www.211.org
