ACA call for Certified American Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Volunteers for California

The American Red Cross has asked ACA to place a call for all available American Red Cross Certified Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Volunteers to respond to California. The Red Cross is estimating that approximately 300 Red Cross certified DMH workers are needed to assist with stress and trauma caused by the fires across California. All available ARC Certified Disaster Mental Health Volunteers are asked to contact their local Red Cross chapter for deployment.

Please note that this call is only for those officially certified by the American Red Cross as a Disaster Mental Health Volunteer. Please do not contact ACA or the Red Cross and ask for an exception; none can be granted at this time.

For those ACA members interested in volunteering for future disasters, ACA offers Red Cross disaster mental health certification training at the annual ACA conference. Currently, all participants in this training must have a state license to practice professional counseling as an independent practitioner (LPC, LMHC, etc.) ACA is working closely with the Red Cross to allow exemptions for the NCC and CRC, but that has not yet been approved. For more information on the Red Cross DMH training at the ACA conference, please contact Debbie Beales at dbeales@counseling.org