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But What About The Children?
By Kathleen Megan, Hartford Courant Staff Writer
September 11, 2005
When Carl Triplehorn arrived in Baton Rouge last week, it reminded him a lot of Aceh, Indonesia, after the tsunami.
"Walking off the airplane, there was the same buzz," said Triplehorn, who is Save the Children's expert on education in emergencies. "Everyone is talking about what they lost," he wrote in a dispatch from Louisiana. "Families are being reunited. Tears are being shed. Many people are sleeping on the floor." While other agencies such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army have attended to the hurricane survivors' basic needs - getting them out of danger, making sure they are fed, clothed and sheltered - Triplehorn's job is to ensure that the children are safe and to focus on their educational and psychosocial needs.
In recent years, his Westport-based agency has sent teams all over the world to help children in crisis, from Tajikistan to Indonesia to the Sudan. Before Katrina hit, Save the Children had a presence in 13 U.S. states, providing after-school literacy and nutritional programs for children, mainly in the rural South and on Native American reservations. It also provided assistance to children after 9/11. However, this is one of the few major natural disasters the agency has responded to in the United States.
Besides Triplehorn's five-member team in Baton Rouge, Save the Children is sending a second team to Jackson, Miss., and may send a third to Texas to help evacuees there. They expect to help hundreds in the short term, and eventually thousands, he said.
"We know what works overseas, and we will be applying that here," said Eileen Burke, Save the Children spokeswoman. "We want to help children recover a sense of normalcy and routine, whether it's through drawing or playing or talking about it."
Because Triplehorn is living in a synagogue among people displaced by the storm, he has seen firsthand how Katrina has affected people.
"Parents are in a daze," he said. "They are trying to figure out what to do for the future. They have no idea how long they will be in the shelter or where they will go."
With parents so preoccupied, he said, "Kids in shelters are walking around with no one paying attention to them."
One mother who hadn't been able to sleep told Triplehorn, "I'm a time bomb."
In general, he said, the kids seem better off than the parents.
The help Triplehorn is bringing is multi-tiered. First, he is trying to bring some diversion and recreation to the children in the shelters. "We brought footballs for older kids, Nerf balls for younger kids, jump-ropes for young girls," he said.
He and his team also are trying to make sure all school-age children are enrolled in local schools. This is difficult, he said, because many of those displaced are "invisible," living among relatives and friends in Baton Rouge or nearby towns.
Triplehorn has also been working with local education officials, discussing the psychosocial needs these children will likely have and exploring ways to provide the services to help them.
Carolyn Miles, chief operating officer for Save the Children, explained that the agency trains local teachers and counselors to present a specialized curriculum or program that addresses a range of psychosocial concerns, including security, self-esteem, coping and resiliency. The curriculum involves structured activities - including dance, music, drawing and cooperative games - that enable children to explore basic emotions such as fear, loss, sadness, joy and courage while having fun. Entire classrooms, not just the "victims" of the hurricane, will participate.
"We do all kinds of cooperative games," said Triplehorn. "We try to get kids expressing themselves and getting a sense of control, self-efficacy, well-being."
Triplehorn said the program helps children bounce back and also helps teachers identify those who might need more individualized attention to recover.
Finally, Triplehorn and his team will work to set up after-school programs providing healthful snacks, recreation and opportunities to increase literacy.
"Oftentimes children after a crisis will isolate themselves," Triplehorn said. "[We're] trying to make sure they are as socialized as possible."
Many kids have lost family, friends, homes, neighborhoods, schools. Their new settings, Triplehorn said, are "artificial communities. There is no real trust between these people. It's difficult to get them to trust."
If kids are not helped to process the complicated feelings after crises like the hurricane, he said, "all the dangers of society are exacerbated: drug use, early pregnancy, driving accidents, gangs. There all kinds of things young people can be exposed to."
Triplehorn expects there will be a particular need for before- and after-school programs because local schools may need to have double-sessions to include all the displaced children.
In some ways, Triplehorn said, this work is easier than his work in Indonesia because there are many educational structures already in place; those structures are "just so highly stressed."
For 10 tips to help children cope with Hurricane Katrina, click here.
Parents and educators, download the toolkit, Expecting the Unexpected: Building Partnerships and Plans to Help Children Cope with Crises (2002). The guide draws from the best national resources, programs and practices to meet the safety and security needs of children in rural, impoverished communities. It identifies practical models for bringing parents and community agencies together to plan for and recover from disasters.
Donate to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes Recovery Fund for Children
