CONSULTANT, PREPAREDNESS & RESPONSE
Tara is a Subject Matter Expert in Mass Casualty incident response, working directly with victims and families in a Family Assistance Center model. She has extensive experience working in all types of disasters and mass casualty incidents, with a particular focus on violence that impacts large numbers of people and the community as a whole. Tara uses her experience in trauma counseling and crisis response to ensure compassionate and effective care of people directly impacted by incidents. Her Mass Casualty response experience includes a deadly tornado in Enterprise, AL (2007), the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 (2009), the Haitian earthquake (2010), Slave Lake Alberta, Canada Wildfires (2011), the Newtown CT Sandy Hook school shooting (2012), the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), the DC Navy Yard shooting (2013), the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting (2016), the October 1 Rt 91 Harvest Festival shooting in Las Vegas (2017), and the Schoharie Limousine Bus Crash (2018). Tara has also remotely supported many mass casualty responses including the Oso, Washington mudslide (2014), the Dallas Police Shooting (2016), Table Rock Lake, MO Duck Boat Accident (2018), Tree of Life Synagogue, Pgh, PA shooting (2018) and the California Camp Fire (2018).
Tara received her BA in Psychology from Boston College in 1988 and Masters of Social Work degree and Family Therapy Certification from Boston University in 1992. She is the Northeast Division Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Advisor for the American Red Cross, covering New England, New York and New Jersey. Tara is a DMH Chief, a Family Assistance Center Lead and an Assistance Director for Operations in the national deployment system for the American Red Cross. From 2014–2018, she worked as the Coordinator for Human Trafficking Programs at the International Institute of Buffalo.. She is Adjunct Faculty at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work, as well as the UB School of Social Work Continuing Education Department.