Building Coping and Resiliency: The Mental Health and Psychosocial Disaster Response

Description

The next public health crisis is not a matter of if, but when—and when it hits, behavioral health clinicians are among the first to be called, yet often the last to be trained. Whether facing a pandemic, natural disaster, or traumatic event in your community, the emotional fallout is immediate, complex, and deeply human. This course equips you to rise to that moment—not with panic, but with purpose.

This essential self-study course provides clinicians with powerful, research-informed strategies to help individuals, families, and communities build resilience and recover from the complex mental health challenges caused by large-scale crises such as COVID-19.

Dr. Mark A. Stebnicki and Captain Michael King are nationally recognized experts in disaster mental health, trauma, and crisis response. With decades of experience working across clinical, academic, and emergency response settings, they bring both scholarly depth and real-world insights into how behavioral health professionals can meaningfully support recovery and resilience in the face of mass trauma.

This course blends trauma-informed principles with public health strategies, drawing from evidence-based practices such as Psychological First Aid (PFA) and disaster response protocols. The instructors offer a practical, human-centered approach to identifying and addressing the full scope of pandemic-related psychological distress and grief.

Topics include the classification and psychosocial impact of disasters; pandemic-specific losses and stress responses; health disparities among vulnerable populations; empathy fatigue among providers; frameworks for adaptive versus maladaptive functioning; the physiological impact of chronic stress; and how to integrate PFA and resilience-building techniques into clinical care.

Key Takeaways:

• Strengthen your clinical response: Gain practical skills for supporting clients’ grief, loss, and adjustment to disaster scenarios, including pandemic-specific stressors.

• Apply Psychological First Aid (PFA): Learn the core elements of PFA and how to adapt them for different populations in real-world outbreak situations.

• Confidently assess and treat trauma: Improve your ability to diagnose and respond to mental health concerns such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, suicidality, and substance use following a crisis.

Why this course?

• Led by trusted leaders: Learn from an experienced disaster mental health professor and a national public health emergency responder who have led real-time crisis interventions.

• Rooted in real-world challenges: This course directly addresses the actual emotional, social, and clinical issues clinicians face during public health emergencies.

• Offered by a mission-driven leader in CE: Telehealth Certification Institute is committed to empowering clinicians through high-quality, accessible continuing education designed for immediate real-world impact.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify coping and resiliency resources for clients that can serve as prevention and treatment of mental health symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic virus, explore the grief, loss, and psychosocial experiences associated with pandemic experiences.

• Recognize key elements of PFA, identify available tools and resources for learning and implementing PFA, and describe how PFA might be implemented with different populations during outbreak scenarios.

• Appraise salient features in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders, as well as suicidality.

This course offers the knowledge and guidance clinicians need to not only respond to disaster-related mental health needs, but to do so with compassion, cultural sensitivity, and effectiveness. Add to cart now and begin building your capacity to lead others toward recovery and resilience.

Format and Access

This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Instruction consists of 3 hours of video instruction and a post-test.

Course Details

Availability: 

From the time of registration, you have six months to access the coursework.

Who Should Attend: 

This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services.

Teaching Methods: 

This is a non-interactive, self-study course. Teaching methods for this course include recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation.

How to Attend: 

Course access and completion instructions.

Instructors and Disclosures

Instructors

About Mark A. Stebnicki, Ph.D., LCMHC, DCMHS, CRC, CMCC

Mark A. Stebnicki is professor emeritus and former coordinator of the Military and Trauma Counseling (MTC) Certificate Program (which he developed in 2015) in the Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation at East Carolina University. He also developed the national Clinical Military Counseling Certificate (CMCC) in 2016, a 12-hour CE program offered nationally through the Telehealth Certificate Institute. Dr. Stebnicki has been a counselor, educator, researcher, and practitioner with over 35 years of experience in the fields of rehabilitation and mental health counseling.

He has practiced and published in areas related to stress, traumatic stress, disaster mental health response, and the psychosocial aspects of chronic illness and disability. He has extensive experience working with active-duty military service members, veterans, veterans with disabilities, and military families. Dr. Stebnicki has published 11 professional books, over 40 journal articles, and book chapters and has provided over 120 national and regional presentations. He has served on many statewide and national professional counseling boards. 

About Captain Mchael King, Ph.D., M.S.W

Captain Michael King is a social worker and epidemiologist who has worked at the intersection of behavioral and public health for over 16 years. He is Regional Administrator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) overseeing HHS Region IV which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Prior to joining SAMHSA in 2019, he supported State and Federal public health capacity at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an instructor and Field Supervisor for post-doctoral fellows enrolled in the Epidemic Intelligence Service. CAPT King previously served for over 10 years on the National Asthma Surveillance Team in the National Center for Environmental Health where his interests focused on chronic disease surveillance, environmental exposure and hazard assessment, and disaster mental health. As a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, CAPT King deploys routinely following disasters and has had the privilege to lead one of five national Mental Health Response teams (Team 5) that provide crisis counseling and technical assistance to medically-underserved populations, with a focus on emergency public health response.

Disclosure Statement: 

The instructor(s) for this course receive compensation for their services. There are no reported conflicts of interest to disclose.

CE Hours

Credit Hours: 

This course consists of 3 continuing education hours of credit.

Counselors:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No, 6693. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0048.

Marriage and Family Therapists:

Many MFT licensing boards accept our courses or one of the approvals which we have from professional associations. You can check with your board to determine if this course would be accepted by your licensing board.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0135, effective May 8, 2025.

Social Workers:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, #1609, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 05/02/2024 – 05/02/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 3 clinical continuing education credits.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0435.

Addiction Professionals:

This course has been approved by Telehealth Certification Institute LLC, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #193104, Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is responsible for all aspects of the programing.

Psychologists:

Telehealth Certification Institute LLC is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Telehealth Certification Institute LLC maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0128.

Art Therapists:

Telehealth Certification Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists #CAT-0093.

Other Professionals:

This activity qualifies for 180 minutes of instructional content as required by many national, state and local licensing boards and professional organizations. Retain your certificate of completion and contact your board or organization for specific filing requirements.

Accommodations and Policies

Close Captioning is available for live webinars and recorded video presentations.

You can click on the following links to view our policies:

Accommodations for Individuals with Disabilities.

Cancellation Policy

Grievance Policy

Support Options

Disclosure Statement

Who should attend

This course is intended for clinicians who provide behavioral health services.

Teaching methods

This is a non-interactive self-study course. Teaching methods for this course includes recorded lectures, videos, a post-test, and a course evaluation.