The Calm Within Chaos: Caring for First Responders in Times of Crisis and Recovery
Alisa McDonald

Alisa McDonald has served as Director for Public Safety Wellness at TEEX since 2022. In this role, she developed Support That Saves: Building and Sustaining Peer Support, a comprehensive three-day training for first responder peer support teams and founded the TEEX Public Safety Wellness and Counseling Center, offering no-cost counseling statewide.

Previously, she was Regional Manager for the Texas Department of Public Safety Victim & Employee Support Services (VESS), supporting staff across Texas and responding to critical incidents, including the Santa Fe, El Paso Walmart, Midland-Odessa, and White Settlement shootings. She also led clinical teams at Rock Prairie Behavioral Health and Scotty’s House Child Advocacy Center and maintained a private counseling practice focused on first responders and survivors of violent trauma.
Most recently, Alisa provided crisis support and clinical consultation for the response team deployed to the catastrophic Kerrville floods.

Alisa earned her B.S. in Criminal Justice (1996) and M.A. in Counseling (2008) from Sam Houston State University and is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor (LPC S) with certifications in Trauma Treatment, Advanced Grief Counseling, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and EMDR.