Menu
The Community Wellness Team was established in December of 2017 in response to the impact of the Thomas Fire and 1/9 Debris Flow in Santa Barbara County. The Community Wellness Team is a collaboration of many local agencies working together to provide behavioral health response, and support, during and following high stress events or disasters within the community.
Hear a non-profit profile about the Community Wellness Team from AM 1290
Led by the Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness, this team comprises a coordinated continuum of services available to meet the needs of individuals, groups, schools, teams, organizations, and overall communities impacted by traumatic events.
The services the Community Wellness Team can coordinate include individual, family and group crisis counseling, critical incident stress debrie ngs, short and longer term therapy for adults and kids and more in both virtual and on-site settings.
If you have, or are currently experiencing a high-stress event such as a natural disaster, trauma or mass-casualty event, call the Community Wellness Team at (805) 364-2750. You will be able to speak with someone about what you are experiencing and receive help getting connected to the right resource for support.
We provide rapid response aimed to mitigate the behavioral health risks experienced by those impacted by a high stress event, and support the development of a foundation for recovery and resiliency. This collaboration assures coordinated, comprehensive and accessible mental health, spiritual and emotional wellness resources uniquely designed for the impact of disasters or high stress events.
Services provided by the Community Wellness Team include immediate crisis response; linkage to short, and long term, counseling support; grief, trauma and bereavement counseling for children and adults in an individual or group format; school support; spiritual care; critical incident stress debriefings and counseling for 1rst responders or other impacted entities; and groups uniquely tailored for the specific event.
In addition, the team provides public information on the symptoms of trauma related stress, phases of community disaster and what to expect, helping children cope with disaster, debriefings for 1rst responders and is providing training in the community on a variety of topics ranging from compassion fatigue to resiliency training.
The Community Wellness Team strives to support the development of resiliency within our community including a strengthened capacity for healing and empowering community members with tools for healing and helping others to heal. The team aims to build the social connections that are key for community resilience, and preventing the progression of stress and trauma resulting in more serious social, mental health, physical and social impacts. This team recognizes that it is not an event itself which creates longer term stress reactions, it is a person or community’s experience with the event. The Community Wellness Team is here to help create longer term resiliency and healing within our community.