Nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina, the storm's impact is still very much felt, but not only in physical ways. Experts think half a million people in southeast Louisiana still need mental health services.

Associated Press

File Photo.

When psychologists through out the country realized the need was so great they decided to help.

Mental health workers came to New Orleans for the American Psychological Association Convention to learn the latest ways to help people suffering with hurricane distress.

Dr. Vickie Mays, a UCLA psychologist, decided to come to the city a few days early so she and a team could put on free seminars to teach the many social workers who’ve become inundated with people in need of mental health and substance abuse counseling.

“We know that after incidents like this sometimes that people will kind of self-medicate, turn towards substances…what we're concerned about is this hurricane season; there is this notion of retraumatisation,” Mays said.

Mays also invited the clergy to attend, recognizing their role as first responders to emotional pain.

“Remember, people quite often will go to their church to seek shelter, they will go to their church in a time of when it seems very bleak,” Mays said.

Those who came to learn said people were still in great need of help a year after the storm.

“One thing that I have noticed is that people are happy to be back in their faith group and they want to just talk, so they come along and they want you to just hear their story,” said Rev. Lendafaye Matthews, Christian Unity Baptist Church.

Social workers attending the seminar have said they’ve seen an increase in substance abuse as a means of coping with post-Katrina stress and anxiety depression.

And Dr. Mays said we also need to help children and teens. She said if we don't intervene now, in a few years, a generation will have problems.

“Kids who may, for example, end up dropping out of school because they just didn't do well, that we just didn’t think about the fact that one of the reasons this kid got pregnant is because she really has such loss and inner needs she lost some of her best friends so what did she do? She clung to her a new relationship; unfortunately this was a sexual relationship,” Mays said.

The conference for mental health workers and clergy is scheduled to continue Wednesday at Loyola University.

For more information on the seminar, call 310-206-5265.