Jack Sarmanian has made a career out of counseling people on how to cope with their emotions. For 50 years, Sarmanian has counseled people dealing with guilt, sadness, fear and anger, and feeling helpless in the wake of a tragedy.

The retired social worker is now an American Red Cross disaster mental health instructor. Sarmanian has been a Red Cross volunteer since 2010. He has assisted tornado victims in Minnesota and Oklahama and campus shooting victims in Oregon. 

His most recent deployment occurred on Friday, Oct. 2, one day after a disgruntled student at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon killed nine and wounded nine others during a campus shooting spree.

Like most Red Cross volunteers, he arrived at the scene within 24 hours. Sarmanian and a team of mental health professionals spent nine days in Oregon providing assistance for those grieving in the tragedy’s aftermath.

This was Sarmanian’s third deployment as a Red Cross volunteer. Sarmanian is one of 500,000 American Red Cross volunteers providing humanitarian assistance nationwide.

As a volunteer, Sarmanian is amazed at the organization’s response time. He remembers in 2013 seeing 25 nonprofit charitable organizations housed in an Oklahoma high school gymnasium. The American Red Cross set up a distribution center servicing 7,000 people in two weeks, according to Sarmanian.

Victims assembled at the center and met with various nonprofit charities who assisted in their food, clothing, shelter or counseling needs.

“For a few nights they might stay in the shelter, but by the time they left, they had cash in their hand and long term housing or an apartment. It was very impressive to watch,” he said.

As a disaster mental health instructor, Sarmanian’s role is guiding the victims through the grieving process. Whether it’s a natural disaster, like a tornado, or unnatural act like a campus shooting, Sarmanian believes the first step to recovery is getting victims to express themselves.

“Getting people to talk is important,” he said. “They also must stop focusing on the negative. An important step is stop watching the news. It only reinforces their pain.”

Sarmanian encourages victims to exercise and spend time with friends and relatives. He recommends a supportive atmosphere that can help victims deal with their grief.

Overwhelming grief is bad for a person’s health, according to Sarmanian. It can cause depression, sleep deprivation and weight loss.

“Self care is important. So it’s important to address these issues early to prevent more serious health problems,” he said.

Grief counseling is similar whether a social worker deals with a tornado survivor or a campus shooting victim as both tend to be in a state of shock, according to Sarmanian. But counseling campus shooting victims presents a special set of challenges for mental health providers.

Tornado victims tend to understand that natural disasters will occur. The campus shooting tragedy was something nobody expected, according to Sarmanian, who spent nine days in Oregon assisting the grieving students, staff and community.

“There was an aura of morbidity,” Sarmanian said as he recalled the atmosphere on campus. “There was a funeral every day I was there. It took away their safety. It shocked the community and frankly scared the hell out of them.”

Sarmanian conducted a 90- to 120-minute lecture each school day. He hoped his words would spur discussion.

“This wasn’t therapy. It was more of supportive intervention,” Sarmanian said. “I thanked them for coming. A lot of these students heard the shots and heard the screams. It was important for them to share feelings and start talking about their feelings.”

Sarmanian and the team of mental health instructors also assisted residents in the 21,000-plus Roseburg community population. Instructors advised how to talk about the tragedy with their kids, ways to support their neighbors and friends, and where to find additional counseling resources during a three-hour forum.

In his professional opinion, Sarmanian believes reducing the number of gun violence incidents has more to do with better mental health services than tougher gun laws.

“I hate guns, but the problem lies more with the lack of mental health services,” he said. “It’s not the gun. We must better find ways of working with people.”

Sarmanian’s next role as American Red Cross volunteer will be counseling military personnel. The U.S. government is reducing the size of its armed forces and Sarmanian has agreed to counsel veterans and their families about dealing with the challenges of leaving military life.