The Trauma Intervention Program was founded in San Diego in 1982 by Wayne Fortin, as a program to provide assistance and grief counseling to patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The program has become widespread on the West Coast, and increasingly more of a presence in the Midwest and East Coast.

The Community Counseling Center began Maine’s Trauma Intervention Program in cooperation with The Junior League of Portland in 2004 to provide support to trauma victims. A nonprofit organization, the Trauma Intervention Program receives funding through grants, private donations, and federal aid.

The program has 26 volunteers, each of whom is on call three days a month for 12 hour shifts. Volunteers also act as dispatchers for one week out of the year, alerting those who are on call to trauma incidents.

“We’d love to get more volunteers, and we’re working to get the word out to people,” said Avery Jenkins, the program manager.

Volunteers go through a 55-hour training program, which is offered twice a year. Volunteers are taught trauma counseling skills in five areas: reaching out, protecting, reassuring, organizing and reinforcing. The next training program is March 5-15.

“Volunteers are there to help victims get the resources they need to move through the grief process. They are there to help take care of the practical and emotional pieces that need to be tended to, often while victims are unable to absorb what’s happening,” said Jenkins.

The Trauma Intervention Program works in partnership with the police and fire departments of Portland, South Portland, Westbrook, Gorham and Scarborough, and with the Maine State Police and Maine Medical Center. Volunteers are available and on call 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year. Last year volunteers responded to 143 calls, spent more than 400 hours at the scene of traumas, and helped 711 people.

The Trauma Intervention Program is working to add more towns and cover a larger area. Maine Medical Center is the primary hospital working with the program, although Jenkins said other hospitals would be welcome to work with the program.

To register to become a volunteer or for more information, contact Avery Jenkins at 874-1030, ext. 509, or visit www.commcc.org.