Someone to Lean On: Addressing Emotional Needs Through Project Liberty

For April Naturale, one of the first challenges after the World Trade Center attack was addressing the needs of young children who saw the fiery crashes replayed on television.

"Many children saw it repeated over and over on TV and were not able to realize it was not still happening," says Naturale. "Later we saw adolescents struggling to make sense of the world. We saw immigrants who were as frightened here as they were in their old countries."

Young. Old. Victims. Survivors. Uniform services personnel.

"The needs were so great," says Naturale. "With a disaster this awful, everyone is affected; everyone has a story."

April Naturale's job -- and those of the 3,000 Project Liberty counselors she oversees -- is listening to those stories. Naturale, who lives in Montclair, N.J., worked for 18 years as a mental health counselor before she was asked by the New York State Office of Mental Health to oversee Project Liberty.

Funded by a total of $154.7 million in immediate and regular service grants from FEMA's Crisis Counseling program, Project Liberty is the largest federally funded crisis counseling program in history.

Administered by the New York State Office of Mental Health, Project Liberty provides free crisis counseling to individuals, families, and groups affected by the attack on the World Trade Center.

"People who normally wouldn't ask for mental health services feel comfortable with us," says Naturale, who hopes to reach 2.5 million people through Project Liberty's print and broadcast campaign. Eleven months after the attack, the program had logged 170,000 contacts and distributed more than 9.1 million brochures.

"This is government being there for people," says Naturale.

A year after the attacks, the outreach continues.

"A lot of us were in healthy denial," explains Naturale. "Our brains said: 'I don't have time to feel bad about this. I need to go to work. I need to take care of my children.'"

For the most part, New Yorkers tried to keep up their daily routines. But it was not always easy.

"People seem to know they're not suffering from a mental illness," says Naturale. "But their symptoms can make them feel afraid and uncomfortable. We remind them that they have the capacity to help themselves. They have the power to feel better."

Project Liberty counselors employ a variety of methods with clients, including active listening, validation, coping techniques, and talking about the future.

"It sounds simple, but it can be so powerful just to acknowledge that we still need to talk," says Naturale, who specializes in listening.

The $154.7 million in grants to Project Liberty represents FEMA's largest crisis counseling funding ever. The amount is greater than the sum of all such grants made since 1974, which total $147.9 million.

Virginia received a $4.5 million Crisis Counseling grant from FEMA to address the needs of those affected by the Pentagon attack.