Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Considerations for Children and Families Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 Fostering Recovery Through Community Resilience
9 Fostering Recovery Through Community Resilience
Pages 91-108
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 91... ...
Older children and youth can be provided with manageable but meaningful roles in recovery. The unfortunate onset of a disaster creates a critical moment to leverage the media on children's behalf, show the challenges that communities face, and advocate for policy changes.
|
From page 92... ...
David Abramson, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, presented an overview of the white paper "The Science and Practice of Resilience Interventions for Children Exposed to Disasters."2 The paper, authored by Abramson, Kallin Brooks, and Lori Peek, provides a review of the current literature on resilience research, and identifies several challenges to developing an evidence base for resilience interventions in disasters. Following first a discussion of research on the science of resilience in children, and then an explanation of the white paper, panelists provide real-world examples of specific strategies to foster resilience.
|
From page 93... ...
This also reinforces David Schonfeld's earlier point clarifying that response to one event in a child's life is actually a response to all of the events in that child's life, and having providers maintain trauma histories can be helpful in understanding a child's response to a singular event and how it might be impacted from previous stressors. Other experiences of great adversity in children's lives are relevant to understanding disaster, but context matters a great deal.
|
From page 94... ...
To foster resilience in children, general guidelines from the literature are to plan developmentally, target and time interventions strategically, consider multiple levels of action, define and prepare first responders, and promote resilience of key systems for children. With regard to planning, Masten said to prepare for children medically, psychologically, and pragmatically.
|
From page 95... ...
THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF RESILIENCE INTERVENTIONS FOR CHILDREN EXPOSED TO DISASTERS Abramson cited the work of Wright and colleagues who classified the existing research on resilience into "four waves": identifying individual factors associated with resilience; understanding how those factors develop as processes in complex systems; understanding how to foster resilience (i.e., interventions) ; and understanding the biology and the epigenetics of resilience (Wright et al., 2013)
|
From page 96... ...
Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study As an illustration, Abramson described the Gulf Coast Child and Family Health Study conducted from 2006 through 2010. This longitudinal cohort study followed 1,079 randomly sampled households in Louisiana and Mississippi for up to 5 years after Hurricane Katrina (including 427 households with children)
|
From page 97... ...
Almost 5 years after Hurricane Katrina, Katrina-affected children and youth had rates of serious emotional disturbance that was five times the national average of a comparable group. Understanding these long-term impacts can help inform resilience interventions, and recovery expectations, Abramson said.
|
From page 98... ...
Abramson summarized four ways that children's resilience can be "activated." Many times, it is through extemporaneous policy decisions. For example, the Joplin School District made the decision to open 87 days after the tornado that devastated 6 of their 10 school buildings.
|
From page 99... ...
The Joplin Child Care Taskforce, for example, is working to train providers in the community to address many of the psychological needs the children are facing. He offered several examples of programs that increase self-efficacy, including the Masters of Disaster curriculum of the American Red Cross, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts preparedness badges and awards, the Wisconsin Responding to Emergencies and Disasters with Youth (READY)
|
From page 100... ...
They have now expanded to rethink nutrition, weight and obesity issues, architecture, digital media, food justice, gardens, and restorative justice. Challenges to Building an Evidence Base on Resilience in Children The authors of the white paper identified three major types of challenges to the development of an evidence base for resilience interventions: definitional, operational, and political.
|
From page 101... ...
The project does not ask the youth about themselves, Abramson explained, but rather, how can they help others in their families and communities. This resilience 3 Children's Health after the Oil Spill: A Four-State Study Findings from the Gulf Coast Population Impact (GCPI)
|
From page 102... ...
Because this area is still new and evolving, it is somewhat of a moving target, but continual sharing of strategies and communication across sectors -- again broadening stakeholders -- can help develop understanding of children in this vulnerable state. Joplin Schools as an Example of Resiliency Angie Besendorfer, assistant superintendent for the Joplin (Missouri)
|
From page 103... ...
Another aspect of the immediate response was attending the funerals of the students who passed, and the family members of students, being there to support the children in their tragic losses. Importance of Establishing and Meeting Expectations Besendorfer explained that the school district established a clear goal immediately following the storm; school would start again on August 17 of that year, just 84 days after the tornado hit.
|
From page 104... ...
Besendorfer added that all of the temporary school sites and the schools that were affected have temporary storm shelters, and safe room additions are being added to all of the elementary schools (with mitigation funding through Sections 404 and 406 of the Stafford Act)
|
From page 105... ...
First used by Save the Children in 2005 in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the convening of a children's task force is now institutionalized in the immediate response to a disaster. The task force engages key stakeholders, including federal, state, and local partners and nongovernmental organizations, to prioritize 5 The video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?
|
From page 106... ...
A key challenge to making a rapid assessment of the impact of a disaster on child care is the lack of any central database or registry of facilities, Spangler said. For Hurricane Sandy, three task forces were established, for New Jersey and New York at the state level, and for New York City.
|
From page 107... ...
Although it's clear that defining and understanding resilience in children is difficult, especially in the wake of a disaster during their developmental years, continued research and case studies from youth groups and child advocacy organizations from around the country can help to identify best practices and tactics children need to recover from adverse events. Engaging youth groups and looking at cross-sector outreach between public health professionals in health equity, social justice, and disaster risk reduction could show new ways of achieving a similar goal of building a stronger community where children can grow.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.