COVID RESPONSE
Throughout 2020 and 2021 the world has been brought to its knees by the COVID 19 pandemic. Travel has been restricted, borders have closed, to date in mid-August 2021 worldwide infection rates reached 201 million people and 4.27 million deaths. Millions have lost their livelihoods, many more been thrown into food insecurity and the toll continues to climb with the emergence of new and more aggressive strains of the virus that threaten to evade the several good vaccines that have been developed. The tragedy of this calamity is incalculable on economies, communities, families and individuals, and it will continue to reverberate for many years to come.
And yet, within this sea of chaos and pain there are opportunities that have opened up for business and education through technological innovations in the workplace and with online delivery of information and training. The healthcare industry is transforming and adapting through the use of remote technologies to deliver healthcare and mental health interventions. PRISE has been enabled by these shifts and it has become feasible to deliver national and international trainings and interventions to paraprofessionals within communities by video link anywhere in the world there is an internet connection.
These capabilities have dramatically reduced the cost of delivery of services by making physical travel to the location of a training unnecessary. It has also enabled us to deliver trainings to multiple areas of the world at one time. PRISE training included participants from Latin America, Hong Kong, Africa, the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. Another included participants from the United States, Costa Rica, Lebanon and Palestine.
The pandemic has allowed PRISE to penetrate into conflict affected and dangerous areas as well as more remote regions that are difficult to travel to. With great challenge comes great innovation and this change will permanently enhance and improve the range of options available to humanitarian efforts around the globe. The PRISE training and techniques are ideally suited for COVID related trauma and can be directly and immediately applied to populations affected by the pandemic.
PRISE commits to the development of a resiliency and wellness app that can be used with a mobile phone as either a supplement to a full PRISE training or a stand-alone companion for those that cannot access a training or receive the interventions directly. The funding from these apps will finance future PRISE projects. The PRISE companion can also be used by those in the developed world to augment high intensity treatment with a qualified EMDR professional or by those unlucky enough to be without health insurance in the United States and who are thus denied access to quality treatments. Once the mobile app is available, it will be possible to obtain directly from the PRISE website for an affordable fee.
PRISE is ideally suited to the current pandemic and post pandemic world in that we can provide remote internet-based training to high-risk or inaccessible areas of the world without danger of exposure to COVID via super-spreader events. Our trauma protocols are easily adapted to COVID-related trauma and thus represent a timely arrival to a world humbled and outpaced by this recalcitrant virus that continues to evade our efforts to contain it.
