Katie Amatruda, LMFT, CST-T, BCETS, EMT-B, DMAT, is a dynamic, nationally known speaker. A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist for over 29 years, she is a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress - Diplomat, American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, and a teaching member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy. She is an Emergency Medical Technician, a member of CA–6 Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) and a Red Cross Disaster Service Mental Health volunteer, and has responded to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and Florida Groundhog Day Tornadoes, as well as to local fires and floods with her local Red Cross, as a Disaster Action Team Leader. She went to Sri Lanka with the Association for Play Therapy and OperationUSA to work with children post-tsunami. She served in American Samoa following the tsunami, and was in Haiti, responding to the devastating 2010 earthquake, within 72 hours. She responds at Critical Incidents and conducts CISD, CISM and Sudden loss and groups.

Katie Amatruda has lectured internationally and teaches in the Extended Education departments at U.C. Berkeley and Sonoma State University. She is the author of A Field Guide to Disaster Mental Health: The Very Big Wave and the Mean Old Storm; School Shootings: 'Red flags' for assessment, detection, and signs of school violence; HIV: The Storm;Psyche & Soma Trauma, Terror and Treatment; and Painted Ponies: Bipolar Disorder in Children, Adolescents and Adults, as well as numerous journal articles and chapters. Her work with trauma is featured in the DVD Trauma Treatment - September 11 - One Year Later, an hour interview with Frontiers TV in Brooklyn, NY, and her work with children with cancer is shown in the DVD Sandplay Therapy and the Liminal World. She has produced a series of powerful lecture/music/PowerPoint presentations on disaster response, including: The Very Big Wave and the Mean Old Storm; Trauma, Terror and Treatment: A Field Guide to Disaster Mental Health; Tsunami; and Welcome to Chaos: Rules for Disaster Mental Health Responders.

Her most recent publications include “Haiti: Deploying with a Disaster Medical Assistance Team,” in THE THERAPIST, Volume 22, Issue 4, July/August 2010. (http://www.kateamatruda.com/CAMFT_Haiti.pdf)

“Want to go to exotic (and sometimes not so exotic) places? Become a Disaster Mental Health Volunteer with the Red Cross!” PLAY THERAPY MAGAZINE, Volume 5, Issue 3, September 2010. http://www.kateamatruda.com/APT_Red_Cross_article_09_10.pdf)

“May the Force Be With You -- Oh...You are the Force!” in THE CA-6 CHRONICLES, Vol. 10, No. 1 - August, 2010 (http://www.ca6dmat.org/newsletter/2010/8/1/mental-health.html)