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Evaluation ViewAttendees 11

Invited Plenary

Disaster Mental Health

Plenary 3a - Responding to Mass Trauma: Adapting Evidence-based Treatments to Scale in Israel After October 7

Sunday, November 23, 2025
8:30 AM - 9:45 AM CST
Location: Celestin D&E, Level 3
Earn 0.5 Credit
Keywords: Trauma, Implementation , Evidence-Based Practice
Level of Familiarity: All
Recommended Readings: American Psychological Association (2025). APA Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Adults. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/guideline-ptsd-in-adults.pdf ,   Cuijpers, P., Harrer, M., Miguel, C., Ciharova, M., Papola, D., Basic, D., ... & Furukawa, T. A. (2025). Cognitive behavior therapy for mental disorders in adults: A unified series of meta-analyses. JAMA psychiatry, 82(6), 563-571. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2832696 ,   Hoppen, T. H., Meiser-Stedman, R., Kip, A., Birkeland, M. S., & Morina, N. (2024). The efficacy of psychological interventions for adult post-traumatic stress disorder following exposure to single versus multiple traumatic events: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. The Lancet Psychiatry, 11(2), 112-122.,   ,  
After the massacre on October 7 and the war in Gaza, estimates of new cases of trauma-related issues (PTSD, anxiety, depression) in Israel range from 300-500,000. This is on top of a public mental health system that was already stressed and at a breaking point. Dr. Huppert will present a program that originated as an adapted pilot program based on England's IAPT program prior to the 7th and was adapted to respond at scale since. The major principles of the program include evidence-based assessment, routine outcome monitoring, and evidence-based practices, based on international clinical guidelines. Trainings include workshops and weekly supervision. In the last two years, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the HMOs (which provide services to all citizens), over 350 therapists in the public sector were trained in Cognitive Processing Therapy, Written Exposure Therapy, or Trauma-Focused CBT for children. We currently in the midst of training an additional 300-400 therapists to Trauma-Focused Unified Protocol, Prolonged Exposure, Prolonged Grief Therapy, and other evidence-based treatments. The design and some findings from the program for dissemination and implementation will be described. Preliminary data and lessons learned along the way will be presented.

Outline:
1. Brief description of Israeli mental health system prior to October 7
2. Estimates of needs following October 7
3. Decision making in terms of interventions to disseminate in first and second years
4. Data on dissemination to date
5. Lessons learned and future directions

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. Describe issues related to disseminating evidence-based treatments in the aftermath of mass trauma.
  2. Describe models of dissemination that address the complications of wide-scale dissemination in the face of mass trauma.
  3. State lessons learned from the current program that could be helpful for future responses to mass trauma.
  4. Long-term Goal: The attendee will be able to describe ways that one can organize systems to respond to mass trauma to optimize dissemination of evidence based treatments.