Today is the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and yet little progress has been made in preparing communities for better outcomes in disasters as we are seeing with Hurricane Harvey in Texas.
Each year millions of children are disproportionately impacted and find themselves in great danger and traumatized by disasters disrupting their lives, families, schools, and communities. Despite the dangers of our reality, we are constantly witnessing an unacceptable lack of awareness when it comes to preparing our most valuable and vulnerable members of our society – our children and special needs citizens.
It has well been known that youth are particularly susceptible to three types of vulnerabilities during disasters: psychological, physical, and educational; yet insufficient attention has been given to preparing this population.
With the frequency and intensity of disasters increasing and more kids being affected by school shootings, increasing acts of terrorism, rising crime and the lingering aftermath of disasters, we face a growing public health crisis caused by trauma that touches us all. The future of any society depends on its ability to foster the healthy development of the next generation.
Disasters can strike anywhere and when it does, children are the most vulnerable. Their little bodies, young minds and future development are at risk.
Disasters are calamitous events, traumatic and customarily outside the scope of normal human experiences and likely to involve psychological and physical injury. Children are uniquely affected by disasters because they are afflicted not only by the trauma of the event but also by their parents' fear and distress. Disaster literacy begins at home yet the average parent spent 5 hours organizing back to school supplies over the past summer versus 1 hour on disaster literacy over the past year.
69 million children are separated from their parents every workday for an average of 9 hours and an average 18-minute trip away.
Kids are not little adults, exposure to simple traumatic events is an all too common experience for many children, including those who are preschool-aged.
Simple Trauma Defined
Simple trauma is overwhelming and painful. It involves experiences of events that are life threatening and/or have the potential to cause serious injury.
They are often single incidents.
- They are shorter in duration often involving a discrete crisis.
- They have less stigma associated with them.
- There is no societal blaming of the victims.
- There are also generally supportive and helpful community responses to the people who have experienced the trauma.
- Simple trauma includes the experience of being in car accidents, house fires, hurricanes, floods, bushfires, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
Disasters have the potential to cause short- and long- term effects on the psychological functioning, emotional adjustment, health, and developmental trajectory of children. As a result of simple trauma reduction in the capacity of the thinking part of child’s brains to shape the way they react to challenges in their environment can occur. As a result, children and young people appear to behave instinctively and sometimes inappropriately, without knowing why. They are also not able to easily influence their feelings when faced with perceived threat or increases in their experiences of stress.
CHILDREN IN DISASTERS FACE UNIQUE CHALLENGES:
Developmental risks: Disruption to children’s schooling, housing, friendships, health care and family networks can stunt children’s ability to advance emotionally, socially, and academically.
- Protection risks: Without adequate adult support & guidance children may not know what to do when a disaster strikes and may not receive the care, protection and shelter they require.
- During disasters, young children may not be able to escape danger, identify themselves, and make critical decisions.
- Children are dependent on adults for care, shelter, transportation, and protection from predators during disasters.
- Children are often away from parents, in the care of schools, child care providers and other activities when disaster strikes.
- Children separated from their parents are especially vulnerable to predators and other dangers and need to be quickly reunited with loved ones.
Don’t let one disaster lead to another—LIVE PREPARED!
Kenneth Bibbins Founder/President PrepWorld LLC New Orleans, La www.prepbiz.us
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