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Appendix G: The Science and Practice of Resilience Interventions for Children Exposed to Disasters
Pages 177-202

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From page 177...
... Rather than being situated in a dusty field, surrounded by chain-link fencing, this trailer park was in a forested glen. The houses were well-kept, single-wide mobile homes, arranged in a horseshoe shape around a grassy field, rather than the smaller travel trailers arranged in endless rows common to other trailer parks.
From page 178...
... Our team of 15 researchers fanned out across the trailer park to recruit the mobile home residents to our Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study. This was the baseline survey for what would ultimately be a 5-year longitudinal cohort study of 1,079 randomly sampled households in Louisiana and Mississippi.
From page 179...
... -- this paper reviews the ways in which resilience research has influenced resilience interventions, considers specific illustrations of these resilience practices, and examines the evidentiary base for these activities. Furthermore, we will place these disaster-related resilience interventions within a public health framework of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.
From page 180...
... After these adaptation pathways were understood, the subsequent step would involve developing interventions that stimulated or facilitated these growth processes to encourage better outcomes for more children, regardless of their circumstances. As a number of scholars have noted, this field of "positive psychology" spawned a short list of factors that were persistently associated with children's ability to adapt and achieve developmental milestones despite being exposed to chronic and acute adverse conditions (Luthar and Cicchetti, 2000; Luthar et al., 2006; Masten, 2001, 2008; Masten and Obradovic, 2008; Wright et al., 2013)
From page 181...
... have referred to this phase of inquiry in the scientific evolution as the first two of four waves of resilience research: the first wave identified resilience factors, and the second wave explored resilience processes within individuals and across these multiple social systems. With each succeeding wave, the resilience research field expanded beyond the original boundaries of developmental psychology.
From page 182...
... , which lists community preparedness and community recovery as the two capabilities that every public health department should plan for as part of their "community resilience" domain. State and public health agencies, in turn, are tasked with identifying processes and outcome measures that can demonstrate to their satisfaction, and that of their federal funders, that they are engaging in and achieving "community resilience." Although these appear to be entirely different constructs from individual resilience, as Norris and colleagues (2008)
From page 183...
... Among these are physical health effects and increased rates of chronic health conditions that emerge across the lifespan; immediate and enduring mental health effects, including self-limiting posttraumatic stress disorder, behavioral and emotional disturbance, and complicated grief; educational disadvantages, including missed grade promotions; and social role effects. Alongside this increased awareness and understanding of the many complex effects of disasters on children has been a growing emphasis by governmental, philanthropic, and voluntary sectors on identifying and intervening to promote positive development among children and avert long-term morbidity and pathology.
From page 184...
... Given that these disaster resilience programs are often similar in size and scale to community-based health promotion and disease prevention programs, and that there may be advantages to aligning the resilience programs with similar programs that target risk reduction or skill enhancement among children and youth, we have categorized the interventions as fitting within primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention models:
From page 185...
...  Tertiary prevention programs target populations who were exposed and affected; their objective is to facilitate rapid and complete recovery and prevent "spread" to others or deteriora tion of the health of the population. This is consistent with the definition of resilience as "rapid recovery," and exclusively oc curs after the disaster exposure.
From page 186...
... These include the New York City–based 9/12 project that emerged after the September 11 attacks, Israel's Urban Resilience Program, VAYLA and the Rethinkers programs in New Orleans, and FEMA's Youth Advisory Council. Although these programs differ in their perspectives, all offer youth explanatory frameworks for disaster risk and consequence that promote hopefulness and agency for the children.
From page 187...
... Although the research literature offers substantial evidence on the relationship of child, parental, and communal characteristics to child development, the evidence for programmatic effectiveness is extraordinarily shallow. The next section considers some of the challenges in developing such an evidence base for resilience interventions.
From page 188...
... * Increase self-worth  Youth Preparedness Council  Rethinkers and self-esteem Self-Control Increase executive  Urban Resilience Program*
From page 189...
...  Child Friendly  Joplin Child Care Spaces Task Force Program*  Urban Resilience Program*
From page 190...
...  Emergency Preparedness Award, Boy Scouts  Emergency Preparedness Patch, Girl Scouts Enhanced or Increase access to  Resilient and Ready  Child Friendly  CHF Mobile Increased Resources human capital, such as Communities Initiative Spaces Mental Health better health,  Teen CERT*
From page 191...
... Positive Worldview Increase or develop  Youth Preparedness Council  Rethinkers* communal solidarity  Urban Resilience Program*
From page 192...
...  VAYLA*  Joplin Child Care Task Force Resumption of Social Provide environment  Urban Resilience Program*
From page 193...
... disaster- places of children affected congregation communities post emergency Communities Communities Community Community intervention process for community action planning; Advancing encourage community relationships and resilience, prompt community Resilience members to assess needs, generate community profiles, develop strategic Toolkit plans, and implement these plans (Terrorism and Disaster Center of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network) Disaster Youth Community Provide emergency preparedness training for teens by engaging, educating, Readiness and empowering youth to respond safely during critical incidents; utilizes a Actions for "train-the-trainer" concept to educate teens to come together to teach others Teens about preparedness (Minnesota 193
From page 194...
... Emergency Youth, girls Community Motivate and empower young women to become leaders in emergency Preparedness management and response; provide opportunity to help others during Patch (Girl emergency Scouts Council of the Nation's Capital) Joplin Child Youth Community Community-based collaboration to respond to children's and providers' Care Task Force mental health needs; provide stable space for children to play, socialize, and begin to recover post-disaster with the goal of protecting children from harm and providing a sense of normalcy and community; educate leaders to meet needs of children Journey of Hope Youth Community Provide caregivers and youth with the support, education, training, and (Save the resources necessary to understand and normalize emotions associated with Children)
From page 195...
... Teen Youth Community, Educate youth about disaster preparedness for hazards specific to their Community school community to ensure they have the skills needed to protect themselves and Emergency assist others; prepare and address response capabilities in high schools; Response train students in school security and emergency response procedures; Training involve youth in the country's overall emergency preparedness and basic (CERT) (Federal response plans Emergency Management Agency)
From page 196...
... Vietnamese Youth Community Promote youth development and community empowerment through American (New cultural awareness, education, and engagement; empower youth through Young Leaders Orleans) supportive services and organizing for cultural enrichment and positive Association of social change New Orleans Youth Youth National Promote youth empowerment, preparedness, and resiliency through the Preparedness experience of peer discussion and learning; educate and promote youth to Council serve on a national council and bring their experiences back to their communities to help develop and advance local preparedness and resilience
From page 197...
... o There is still considerable debate about whether resilience is defined as the absence of mental health pathology, the achievement of a specific developmental milestone, or the representation of a specific constellation of positive attrib utes (e.g., self-efficacy, positive worldview, etc.)
From page 198...
... o It has also been difficult to operationalize the effects of for mal help mechanisms in observational studies because they are so varied, are not universally defined, and have no com mon data systems. The problems inherent in such resilience research are common to public health research's efforts to evaluate community health interventions, and solutions in that field may find traction in resilience research.
From page 199...
... . As mentioned earlier in this white paper, there are also public health research strategies that can be employed in resilience research.
From page 200...
... 2008. Prevalence and predictors of mental health distress post-Katrina: Findings from the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study.
From page 201...
... 2003. Children's mental health after disasters: The impact of the World Trade Center attack.
From page 202...
... 2013. Resilience processes in development: Four waves of research on positive adaptation in the context of adversity.


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