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Trauma Response and Emergency Preparedness Unit
The Trauma Response and Emergency Preparedness (TREP) unit combines emergency preparedness and disaster recovery with emerging public health strategies for community trauma and violence reduction.
The goal of TREP is to ensure that responses to major disasters as well as local incidents and communities’ ongoing experience of stress, trauma, and violence in Philadelphia are coordinated, collaborative, and community driven.
Emergency Preparedness
The Emergency Preparedness component of the TREP unit works in collaboration with the City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to support responses to critical incidents, disasters, and special circumstances, as well as preparedness planning from a trauma-informed behavioral health lens.
This includes resource coordination, in-person psychological first aid support and cross-system collaboration with city, state, and federal level stakeholders, as well as local behavioral health partners.
Emergency Preparedness also works within DBHIDS to improve emergency procedures, continuity of operations planning, and other internal preparedness activities.
Contact the Emergency Preparedness division of TREP at DBHIDS.EmergencyPrep@phila.gov.
Trauma Response
The trauma response component of the TREP unit includes the Network of Neighbors program, which is a free trauma response network for the city of Philadelphia.
The Network of Neighbors provides guidance, trauma and evidence-informed community interventions, and training to communities (neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, etc.) in Philadelphia upon request.
Network of Neighbors staff and trained community responders work alongside the community’s natural leadership to address the community’s unique experience and organize support for impacted community members.
The Network must be invited in by the impacted community before any support is provided. Learn more about the Network of Neighbors here or contact the Network at 267-233-4837 or networkofneighbors@phila.gov.
Emergency preparedness and trauma response (the Network of Neighbors) use trained community responders to support response efforts. Staff and community-based responders are trained in Psychological First Aid and Post-Traumatic Stress Management and follow a structured, collaborative framework that works to center the experience of each impacted community and align citywide response efforts with the stated needs of the community.
Network of Neighbors: A Trauma Response Network
The Network of Neighbors is a FREE, citywide trauma response network operated out of the Trauma Response and Emergency Management (TREP) unit of DBHIDS. The Network provides guidance, support, and training to communities across Philadelphia who are impacted by any experience of overwhelming or ongoing stress.
“Community” is defined broadly to include schools, workplaces, rec centers, blocks, neighborhoods, places of worship—or any group of people with a common affiliation. Communities may reach out to the Network for support in response to any experience—including incidents, accidents, community violence, suicide, loss, fires, natural or man-made disasters, threats, etc.
These experiences can also be ongoing—such as living or working in a community or neighborhood impacted by the gun violence or opioid epidemics. Communities may also reach out in response to stress or secondary trauma associated with the work they do—whether that’s teaching, parenting, caregiving, being a first responder, a community health worker, a community advocate, etc.
The Network of Neighbors is not a 24/7 crisis response service. Instead, the Network supports communities around the impact of their experience—however they define it—and on their terms and timeline. Support can happen virtually, or anywhere the community regularly meets or feels most comfortable—during the day, in the evening, or on weekends.