Ethical Self-Care and Client Care in a Crisis continued from page 11
SPECIAL FOCUS
How to keep you rself — and your practice — thriving
Ethical Self-Care and Client Care in a Crisis continued from page 11
and suicidal thoughts . Burnout among these workers has reached crisis levels .” Whether mental health workers are among those needing assistance due to impairment or are the mental health providers for healthcare workers seeking counseling and assistance , we are responsible for being able to conduct an assessment to help ourselves and others .
When a crisis strikes , the already depleted workforce encounters more challenges . For example , who among us plans to be providing counseling on behalf of the Red Cross for victims of a tornado in Kentucky only to be notified by a call from your spouse that your home was destroyed by flooding in Texas ? This is a reality that some of our mental health colleagues have faced . As members of the counseling profession , each of us should make a concerted effort to incorporate self-care and care for colleagues as an ongoing part of our professional lives . By doing so , we become a model of a professional community that is adequately prepared to face a crisis .
Innovation — Effective Uses of Technology During the Crisis
The challenges of crises are often offset with the emergence of a series of innovations , most of which appear to be major shifts in thinking and behavior that change overnight . For example , during the COVID-19 pandemic , the processes for producing and approving vaccinations for the COVID-19 virus were created in record time . Due to the amount of isolation and quarantine required for safety , technology suddenly became a central means of communication .
Even for those mental health counselors reluctant to adopt counseling by computer , the transition to telemedicine occurred quickly . Telehealth accounted for less than 1 percent of the appointments in the United States for mental health and substance use issues before the pandemic began . But by October 2020 , just months after the pandemic began , 41 percent of these visits were conducted virtually .
The normal means of delivering mental health care moved from in-person office meetings to the use of telehealth platforms to provide client services . These changes promoted more access for more people . The ease of access to counseling services further accelerated support for first responders and frontline health workers , who gained access to services that were delivered on their shift schedules .
Several of the changes regarding the delivery of mental health counseling occurred because the traditional barriers to service delivery were temporarily removed , according to a January 2021 article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology :
• Some states began to allow out-ofstate mental health providers to deliver care .
• Medicaid telemedicine coverage policies were expanded .
• Commercial insurance providers approved payment for telemedicine visits rather than requiring in-person sessions .
• Some commercial insurers even expanded telemedicine coverage .
While at the time these changes appeared likely to be temporary , many of these innovations remain in place today . Another change that has taken place over the past few years is that the Counseling Compact will enable more LCMHCs who are “ licensed and residing in a compact member state to practice in other compact member states without need for multiple licenses .”
The examples of these rapid developments that occurred during the pandemic point to what can happen during a crisis . Mental health counselors now have some extraordinary technology tools to utilize in a crisis . While more are being developed as challenges arise , here are four tools available to utilize now .
1 . Mental Health Applications : A variety of applications support mental health for you and your clients . While several commercial apps are available , the federal government creates free apps to assist military personnel . These apps are also available to the public and include Breathe2Relax , eMoods ( for Android and Apple ), Paced Breathing ( for Android and Apple ) and the SAM app . See Military OneSource for others such as AIMS for Anger Management , Babies on the Home
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12 The Advocate Magazine 2024 , Issue # 1 American Mental Health Counselors Association ( AMHCA ) www . amhca . org