The long-term recovery of any community suffering from disaster requires the involvement of community members – at the earliest time possible. Through dynamic partnerships, World Cares Center gathers the services of caregivers and community leaders to continue providing long-term recovery programs for disaster-stricken communities – long after the relief agencies have withdrawn their support.

World Cares Center’s September Space Community Resiliency Centers (“September Space”), located in New York City, help communities affected by disaster, emergencies and trauma to restore their social, emotional, and physical wellbeing. The groups we serve include Lower Manhattan residents, workers, students, caregivers from community-based programs, minority populations who experience barriers to services, disaster survivors, disaster volunteers, responders, recovery workers, and returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

From these groups we have learned that there is an ongoing need for supportive services as individuals move through the stages of recovery at their own pace, they benefit from the long-term availability of different forms of support. Equally important, experience has taught us that disaster workers, including official responders and both affiliated and unaffiliated volunteers, need to learn to care for themselves as they care for others. It is essential in order to avoid burn-out, compassion fatigue, depression, and other physical and mental illness, and to deal with the symptoms of these illnesses when they do occur. September Space responds to these needs with an array of comprehensive services.