AMTA Massage Emergency Response Team
AMTA MERT prepares and manages volunteer massage therapists for professional deployment to disaster sites to perform massage on rescue and recovery workers.
Displaced Haitians set up tents in football stadium
The concept for a MERT Program started in 1989 following the California Loma Prieta Earthquake. During that disaster, more than 8,000 massages were given to disaster workers, demolition workers, grief counselors, highway patrol officers, and many others. Since that time, volunteer massage therapists have participated in numerous disaster responses.
AMTA MERT offers emergency management agencies and rescue workers the expertise of highly qualified, professionally trained massage therapists. To volunteer, therapists must:
- Maintain their AMTA Active Professional classification membership in good standing, and
- Have liability insurance coverage (included in your AMTA Professional classification membership).
A woman is helped after being trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince.
MERT members may be working alongside individuals from the federal and state emergency management agencies, the Red Cross, the National Guard, law enforcement and other responding agencies. Long before the concept of MERT, emergency management agencies developed policies and procedures allowing them to respond cooperatively and effectively to disasters.
To volunteer, contact your AMTA chapter.
Tags: Haiti earthquake emergency response team
admin
