Tex. Nonprofit Offers Free Therapy to First Responders Amid COVID-19
Odessa American, Texas
As Texas and the rest of the world tries to inevitably make the return to normal life as best as it can from the COVID-19 pandemic, the return to normalcy will still be difficult for some people.
Centers for Children and Families in Midland and Odessa are offering two free sessions to health care workers and first responders fighting COVID-19.
Centers’ executive director Kristi Edwards said she realized early on about the need to support these workers with mental health care services.
It’s not the first time that they’ve offered free counseling to first responders, doing the same thing after the Odessa and Midland mass shootings back in August.
“So we made that decision back in September when we had the shootings in Odessa and we did the same thing then,” Edwards said. “We felt that it was important that people who were on the front lines or people who were willing to risk their lives to take care of us that we needed to take care of them as well. We have to take care of their emotional and well-being.
“What we consider first-responders, we consider hospital workers and anyone that’s working in a doctor’s office or EMT, police men, sheriff’s deputies and anyone who’s going into these situations where it’s possible that they can be exposed to the virus,” Edwards said.
While it may be part of their occupations, Edwards said that with first responders and health care workers’ jobs can come a certain level of anxiety.
“They’re putting themselves at risk and it’s not the same as being on the front line in Afghanistan and being shot at but people are dying,” Edwards said. “They do have to have that in the back of their minds. They’re probably thinking ‘is this the time I’m going to get this virus?’ and ‘am I going to outlive it’ and they get that anxiety level and that can affect their ability to sleep, or make good decisions if you’re not able to process what those emotions mean. It doesn’t take it away but it’ll help you to think clearer and to make better decisions.”
Centers also has a weekly podcast called Centers Solutions: COVID Edition that will introduce special guest Dr. Summer Merritt who is a co-founder of an organization called Protect Our Frontline West Texas which is a coalition of healthcare workers in Midland and Odessa who are banding together with the community to battle the spread of the coronavirus in West Texas.
Edwards said that Centers has been doing podcasts for about a year now.
“We collaborate with the recording library of West Texas,” Edwards said. “We have gone to other nonprofits and people that are connected to mental health in some ways and we have them come on to the podcast. We figured out that there’s a mental health connection to everything everyone does. Over the year, we’ve collaborated with other non-profits and doctors and teachers and anybody that what they do affects the mental health of the Permian Basin.”
The podcasts are available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify.
Those who have more information on the free sessions for qualifying healthcare workers and first responders can give Centers a call at either one of their locations at 432-570-1084 in Midland and 432-580-7006 in Odessa.
