PAU Alumna, Katrina Robin Volante, Makes an Impact in the Aftermath of Hurricane Ian

  Katrina Robin Volante graduated from the Palo Alto University Master’s in Counseling program in August of 2022. Only a month later Hurricane Ian damaged Volante’s family home in southwest Florida, where she was living at the time, and caused Volante and her family to join others in their search for a new home. This natural disaster provided an unanticipated opportunity: to offer mental health services to the survivors of this category four storm, an event that took more than 150 lives and swept away thousands of homes.    In response to the hurricane, Florida launched the country’s first-ever State Emergency Response Team (SERT) for Mental Health and Wellness. Volante joined this team of mental health counselors, nurses, massage therapists, somatic experience practitioners, and respiratory therapists for a six-week assignment in the hardest-hit areas of Florida.

  “Being on the ground less than a month after the storm made me quickly realize that field therapy was going to look different from safe-in-the-office therapy,” says Volante. “I was meeting with survivors who were living in the debris of their homes, who had lost family members and pets, who had sustained physical injuries, and who could not sleep because of flashbacks.”   During the first month of the project, Volante learned from nurses and bodywork therapists regarding how to stabilize and reset the autonomic nervous systems of the survivors. In the last two weeks of the project, survivors were ready to begin processing their feelings, and Volante was able to share her knowledge of mental health best practices with the team. “I am grateful to have worked on an interdisciplinary team because all of our skills and training were needed to provide holistic care,” says Volante.   Volante’s assignments were in Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Beach, and Pine Island, which were beautiful parts of Florida. “There was this weird juxtaposition when we were speaking with survivors,” says Volante. “When I would talk to them on the beach, I’d see so much beauty from the Gulf on one side, but then on the other side, there was nothing but rubble. Everyone’s homes were gone, and it was devastating.”   Volante has had previous experience working in environments of crisis. Before living in Florida, she worked as a teacher and school administrator in China during the breakout of COVID-19 in early 2020. As the whirlwind of fear and confusion was experienced among her students and staff, Volante discovered that she was naturally skilled at supporting people with mental health, which inspired her to enroll at PAU. In 2022, the onset of the Shanghai COVID-19 lockdowns and two quarantine experiences prompted her to leave China and Volante moved to Malaysia to complete her studies before rejoining her family in Florida.    Volante’s first, on-the-ground crisis work was in China in 2021 when provinces around the country were locking down. Volante was enrolled at PAU at that time and her internship provided the opportunity to support people via telehealth across China. When the Shanghai lockdowns occurred in early 2022, Volante worked with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as suicides, self-harm, and domestic and sexual violence skyrocketed.   “The most significant experience I had during this time was choosing to continue my educational and clinical responsibilities while in a quarantine facility. Overnight, I found myself in the same uncertain, anxiety-inducing position many of my clients had been in for weeks, and this helped me deepen my understanding of the mental health tools I had been teaching,” says Volante. “In particular, I better understood the value of reliable external support in bolstering inner determination to persevere. In hindsight, I realize that I drew on this experience in China to function well through the stress caused by Hurricane Ian.”   Volante is grateful for the opportunity to serve the survivors of Hurricane Ian. This experience, along with her PAU education, allowed her to develop her independence, individual counseling style, and helped her realize that she thrives in working in crisis environments. 

From these experiences, Volante was able to identify the three aspects that are most important for one’s mental health. “Relationships that offer genuine, unconditional respect, love, and support are what we need the most,” says Volante. “It doesn't matter if those relationships are family or friends. When you have those three, keep those relationships near you.”

Volante credits the professors at PAU for teaching the foundational counseling skills that enabled her to have a positive impact on Hurricane Ian survivors.  “PAU taught me everything it needed to,” says Volante. “The University helped me learn more about myself and gave me the skills I needed to make a difference.”