The Pierce County MRC has recently added a Behavioral Health Lead, Verna Lilly. Verna is leading the development and ongoing management of our Trauma Resilience Team (TRT). The team is comprised of a group of MRC volunteers with nationally recognized trauma and mental health training.

TRT members provide short-term mental health support in crisis or acute stress situations and promote trauma and stress resilience in the community through educational activities. As of March 2020 the Trauma Resilience Team is deployable and can adapt to a variety of settings and incidents.

An example is presenting the Compassion Fatigue interactive webinar, developed by collaboration between the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and Pierce County Emergency Management.  A combination of PowerPoint presentations and participant interaction works to build staff support strategies for agencies meeting the increased challenges of the COVID-19 response.

New members must:

• Be an MRC volunteer
• Take CISM GRIN Training (provided)
• Take suicide intervention training
• Comply with continuing education requirements as applicable per profession