Minnesota Behavioral Health Medical Reserve Corp

• Minnesota Behavioral Health Medical Reserve Corp (PDF)
  Fact sheet in PDF format.

What is the Behavioral Health Medical Reserve Corp (BH MRC)?

The Behavioral Health MRC is a statewide group of volunteer behavioral health specialists, whose mission is to support the global resilience of individuals, communities, and the Public Health Incident Command System during disasters by providing expert skills in the area of behavioral health. Disasters in which the MN Behavioral Health MRC may be deployed include, but are not limited to, natural disasters, human-caused disasters and accidents, terrorism, pandemics, and other public health emergencies.

BH MRC Volunteers

Behavioral Health MRC volunteers may be retired, licensed or unlicensed from behavioral health professionals, social workers, mental health counselors, school counselors, mental health case managers, substance abuse professionals, chaplains, psychiatric nurses, geriatric specialists, or they may come from a closely related disaster community support service field. 
Behavioral Health MRC volunteers have expertise in behavioral health crisis response, are knowledgeable about local and regional mental/behavioral health and disaster resources and have the communication skills to coordinate with local mental/behavioral health agencies, other disaster responders, and community support services during community response and recovery.

Types of Services

• Disaster Mental/Behavioral Health Education and Training to disaster responders, disaster community support services, and disaster-impacted communities.
• Disaster Behavioral Health Risk Communication to assist development of disaster behavioral health handouts and messaging, including providing support to disaster and public health emergency hotlines.
• Disaster Intervention and Referral services such as psychoeducation, mental/behavioral health triage, Psychological First Aid (PFA), Skills for Psychological Recovery, and consultation for incident command and disaster response and recovery staff.

Where are Services Provided?

• Disaster Recovery Centers (DRC) to provide emotional support services and assist in connecting with other disaster support services.
• Behavioral Health Outreach (BHO) support services provided door-to-door in disaster impacted neighborhoods to assist survivors without access to disaster services and/or survivors who may not be actively seeking formal services.
• Assistance Center (AC) for waiting family members and/or survivors of the disaster. AC services may include Information Briefings, Psychological First Aid (PFA), Family Reunification, Death Notification support, and linkage to community resources.
• Incident Command Centers, Staging Areas, Deployment Sites to support the emotional health of public health and healthcare disaster responders.
• Community Locations such as churches, schools or other locations where they can best meet the needs of disaster impacted communities.

How to Access the BH MRC

Emergency management can request the assistance of the MN BH MRC by submitting a resource request through the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), or if the SEOC is not open they can submit a request to MDH through the State Duty Officer.