DDH’s Guiding Light Sets Her Sights on a New Horizon
April Naturale, Ph.D., has been working as a mental health care administrator, clinician, and traumatic stress specialist for more than 30 years. Of those, roughly 12 years were spent working for or in partnership with Vibrant. This month, she will move her career to the next stage: retirement.
Few people have embodied Vibrant’s mission like Dr. Naturale, vice president of disaster services. To recount her work in crisis and disaster care is, in many ways, to tell the story of Vibrant’s expertise in disaster services and national crisis hotlines.
She first partnered with Vibrant in 2001 when she led Project Liberty, New York’s state behavioral health response to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.
At the time, LifeNet, the crisis hotline for New York City, became a vital resource for residents seeking support and access to resources. As 9/11 was a national event, calls soon came in from across the country.
“In addition to Project Liberty, LifeNet became a disaster response crisis line, and by extension, Vibrant became the national hub for disaster response communications. Project Liberty turned into a massive effort. We put about 4,200 staff members in the field, held 2,500 training events, and worked hard to stay current with best practices,” she recalled.
After Project Liberty concluded in 2003, Dr. Naturale officially joined Vibrant to help launch the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, now known as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, the federal government turned to Dr. Naturale and Vibrant for assistance in disaster response efforts.
“When Katrina struck, communities could not immediately start up a disaster hotline. So, local suicide prevention centers like the Baton Rouge Crisis Center were taking calls, as were centers in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Texas.”
However, it soon became clear that callers not experiencing suicidal thoughts were reluctant to call a suicide prevention line for disaster-related distress. Recognizing the need for a distinct service, Dr. Naturale and her team set the foundation for what would become the Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH).
“We also saw in the aftermath of 9/11 that symptoms of trauma and stress came and went over time. It often takes years for people and communities to recover from disasters, further illustrating a need for a permanently active disaster hotline.”
In April 2010, the worst accidental marine oil spill in history happened in the Gulf of Mexico.
As part of SAMHSA’s long-term recovery efforts, in September 2010, a confidential, toll-free Oil Spill Distress Helpline (OSDH) was established in partnership with Vibrant, linking individuals to crisis centers in the Gulf states.
The infrastructure created for the OSDH led to the creation of the Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH), which launched on February 28, 2012.
As a nationwide service, the DDH had the potential to serve many more individuals, families, and communities affected by natural or human-caused disasters throughout the United States and its territories.
Since then, the DDH has helped more than 300,000 people who have reached out for support and continues to be the only national hotline dedicated to providing year-round disaster crisis counseling and emotional support.
In 2011, Dr. Naturale left Vibrant to train humanitarian aid workers for the EU and to respond to incidents of mass violence across the U.S.
Events included the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), the Walmart shooting in El Paso (2019), the Harvest Festival shooting in Las Vegas (2017), the Poway Synagogue shooting (2019), the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting (2013), and more.
She returned to Vibrant in 2020 as Assistant Vice President of National Programs, where she oversaw the then two subnetworks of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, as well as the Disaster Distress Helpline and the Veterans Crisis Line.
She also developed a network-wide wellness program to help mitigate the negative impacts of the traumatic stress of working in the areas of suicide prevention, disasters, and armed conflict, improving the well-being of staff and increasing compassion, satisfaction, and meaning in their work.
In 2022, she stepped in as Interim Executive Director of the newly launched 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Over the course of her extraordinary career, Dr. Naturale has learned many lessons.
“I learned that during disasters, people’s defenses are down. They’re raw, vulnerable—and they let you in. That felt sacred to me. People shared their worst fears and struggles with me. It was a privilege,” she shared. “It felt meaningful. People allowed me to help them. That gave the work purpose.”
Dr. Naturale just finished a book about her experience working on the 9/11 relief response and plans to spend her retirement writing and relaxing on the beach.
“I’ve never really taken a break before, so this is a chance to focus on self-care. I’m a clinician, but the research is clear: nothing is more important than social support. Take care of yourselves, but take care of each other, too,” she added.
The full extent of Dr. Naturale’s contributions to Vibrant Emotional Health—and to the fields of traumatic stress, disaster and crisis care, and the thousands of individuals she touched—is immeasurable and will be felt for decades to come.
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