Case Scenario:

You are working in the health care profession, and a client discloses to you that she was robbed at gunpoint one week ago. She tells you she was awakened in the night by a loud noise and discovered two intruders had broken into the apartment and were robbing it. When the intruders discovered there was someone in the apartment, they threatened the tenant with a gun. The robbers told her to stay away from the phone and to not call the police, or else she would regret it. Then they left the apartment.

Your patient states that she called the police, who arrived at the apartment within 5 minutes. However, the police were not optimistic about finding the intruders, since it was dark in the apartment and the descriptions were very vague.

Knowing about the warning signs of PTSD, you ask her some questions about how she is doing. She states that she is having trouble sleeping at night and she is afraid to be alone in her apartment. As a result of what you have studied in this course you are concerned that she may be at risk of developing PTSD.

You comfort her and explain to her that it might be a good idea for her to get professional support for the traumatic experience she has just been through. You tell her you will get in touch with her tomorrow to give her some resources and suggestions for where she can go for help. Based on this please complete the following:

• Research your local community as well as your county/borough and state to identify support services for people with PTSD. Start as local as you can and then widen your search net to the county or state level. If you need to, you may have to broaden your search to the national level to find applicable resources. You are not expected to do an in-depth professional search for these resources, but your search should identify professional and credible resources. Please use easy to access resources like the Internet, phone books, and local non-emergency sources (e.g. 211) to see what it would be like for someone in your area seeking trauma and PTSD services. Using a Word document address the following:

• Prepare an itemized list of 3- 5 PTSD resources and services available including contact information and website addresses if they are Internet based. Include a brief description of what each resource offers for information or services and how the person would access the resource (in person appointment, telephone, Internet, etc.) Do not simply copy/paste from your sources, as this will result in a failing grade on this assignment. You must synthesize and summarize the information. For each resource that you found, describe briefly how you assessed its credibility and appropriateness?

• In one paragraph, describe how easy or difficult it was to locate PTSD resources and services in your region. How long did you have to go to find something appropriate? Did you discover any local services that you would recommend to this patient? Would someone who had not taken this course and had no significant knowledge of PTSD be able to locate these resources?

• For the final part of this brief essay, please identify at least 2 gaps in your community in terms of resources and services for people who have experienced trauma and are at risk of developing PTSD. If you were in charge of these types of social services and support systems, what would you do differently than is being done today to address these gaps? Hint: this section should be the most detailed and critically thought out.