Disseminating early interventions for disaster mental health response using the ECHO model.

Area of Science:

• Disaster mental health
• Educational technology
• Public health interventions

Background:

• Rural communities face unique challenges in disaster response.
• School professionals are crucial for early psychological support.
• Disseminating evidence-based interventions like PFA and SPR is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate ECHO-based telementoring for delivering PFA and SPR training.
• To assess the effectiveness of training school professionals in disaster-affected areas.
• To examine training outcomes across multiple evaluation levels.

Main Methods:

• Utilized ECHO telementoring to deliver PFA and SPR training.
• Conducted pretraining webinars and multi-part training sessions.
• Employed Moore's framework to evaluate participation, satisfaction, learning, competence, and performance via surveys.

Main Results:

• High participation and satisfaction reported across all training components.
• Significant improvements observed in learning, competence, and performance.
• Sustained high utilization of PFA and SPR skills at 1-month follow-up.

Conclusions:

• ECHO-based telementoring is a viable model for disseminating disaster mental health interventions.
• The training successfully equipped school professionals with PFA and SPR skills.
• Evaluation data can inform and enhance future telementoring programs.