Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Tsunami Affected School ...

104

Social Work Practice in Mental Health: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Tsunami Affected School Children in Kanyakuumari District, South India Subhasis Bhadra

ABSTRACT: Mental health and psychosocial support in disaster is considered as a most essential service component for any disaster intervention. School and educational systems affected by disaster need sensitive planning and intervention for the recovery, where the mental health of the school children is a most crucial component, along with other physical recovery and reconstruction. In various national and international guidelines children are considered as one of the vulnerable groups who need immediate attention. Sending the children back to school and starting regular schooling is an essential step in disaster intervention programmes. IASC-MHPSS (2007), Sphere (2011), INEE (2005) and international documents and guidelines have emphasised this point. With the reopening of the school it is equally essential to start psychosocial processes of healing and a school recovery programme in the community can rebuild their shattered lives and help for a better future. This article describes the international guidelines for school intervention in the event of disaster and the mental health and psychosocial support interventions for children, with a specific description of a school recovery programme conducted in the Kanyakumari district following the South Asian Tsunami in the year 2004. The intervention was focused on mental and physical health recovery intertwined with various strategies that included capacity building of the educators for mental and physical well-being and a series of interactive interventions that build resiliency, preparedness and recovery. Mental health recovery is possible through a holistic recovery approach where engagement of the key stakeholders namely, teachers, parents and community people are important. This paper brings out issues that field practitioners should know for facilitating an all-round recovery among children in disaster affected areas. Keywords: Mental Health and Psychosocial Support, Disaster Intervention, Tsunami, School Recovery.

INTRODUCTION In any event of disaster, whether human made or natural, its impact on educational systems is enormous. Facilitating recovery of the children in schools simultaneously with community intervention is most crucial after disaster. A school, being the primary socialising agent, plays an important role in the growth and development of children and adolescents. With massive death, destruction, and displacement in any disaster, the educational system faces a major challenge when re-starting and normalising the pattern of functioning. In most of the cases the post disaster complications and life events are barriers for rehabilitation and

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Tsunami Affected School Children…

105

recovery. The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC)-MHPSS (2007) guideline has clear mention of the three essential aspects namely the pre-existing, emergency induced, and humanitarian aid induced problems in social and psychological aspects. Bhadra (2006; 2012) mentioned that it is not only the disaster related life events, but rather the pre-disaster and post disaster complications and life events that are a major concern for post disaster intervention among the practitioners. Therefore, recovery of the disaster affected population and in particular the children have special needs which should be supported with a holistic perspective of overall development in the school, community, family, and peer groups. During the relief phase while the people were in camps, await in gpsychosocial care, for children and adolescent sespecially, the re-opening of schools is considered as one of the most important steps after any disaster (Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), 2007; The Sphere project, 2011; The Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), 2005). At this stage schooling is done mostly in the form of informal education and the purpose is to encourage the children to gather, and group interactions are initiated. Simultaneously, creating a safe, secure environment that is stimulating, attractive, child friendly and ensuring ‘sense of place’ of the children in the schools are vital factors for strengthening the process of recovery. In this process the whole school community needs to get involved gradually, as people move from their temporary shelters to their permanent housing. The school community as a concept involves teachers, school administrators, other school staff, parents, local governing bodies and other systems that are closely associated with the school, including the government department of education, health department, youth and child welfare department and so on (Satapathy and Yoshida, 2007). In different disasters around the world, educational systems are taken as an essential area of intervention for facilitating recovery among the children. It is seen that working with the school in the disaster intervention always has lead towards enhancing the well-being of the students (Bordoloi and Khoja, 2006; Nouri, Mansouri, Abbaspour, Karbassi, and Omidvari, 2011; Copeland and Hobson, 2004). POLICIES AND GUIDELINES ON SCHOOL INTERVENTION IN DISASTER The international guidelines for disaster intervention in schools have included both psychological and physical health aspects of recovery and holistic well-being for development. The important documents on the same are INEE (Interagency Net work for Education in Emergencies, 2006) and IASC guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in emergency settings (2007). World Health Organisations (2003; 2005; 2006), UNICEF (2005; 2012) NIMHANS (Sekar, et al., 2005; Sekar, Biswas, Bhadra, Jayakumar, and Kumar, 2005) have published a series of documents on working with the school children. These guidelines and documents included various details of mental health and physical health interventions, facilitating hygienic practices, promoting life skills education, working with community, participatory approach in educational intervention, development of policies and guidelines for the country etc. The unique features which are noted in these documents for promoting mental health and psychosocial wellbeing, are as follows in Diagram 1 and text;

106


Diagram 1: Various Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Components in Policy Guidelines

Adapted from (The Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), 2005).

Both formal and in-formal education has been promoted for the children as well as for adults. Though restarting the formal education may be time consuming, the informal education should be initiated as early as possible. In this process involving a large number of local community leaders, volunteers, and teachers is encouraged. School is the integral part of disaster interventions and should always be done in adequate coordination with the local community. Hence the programme becomes part of the community recovery, and the connectivity of intervention between the schools, communities, and familiars is consolidated. The focus on accessibility of education for all deals with ensuring no discrimination and creating opportunities for all. The marginalised groups should be included and it should be ensured that the traditional discrimination of the society is not promoted. Educators are the key personnel for intervention in schools. Developmental programmes in the schools or a disaster response is dependent on the knowledge, skills and capacities of the educators. Giving recognition to the educators and ensuring required skills through capacity building sessions, follow-up and culturally appropriate materials are crucial.


107

Creating safe and supportive education through formal or non-formal systems of education has been prioritised in any disaster intervention. Safety of the children is an important concern which deals with structural and nonstructural safety from internal and external factors related to disasters. In the school promoting health and facilitating hygienic environment is crucial for recovery of the survivors. The Sphere Handbook (2011) has minute details of each of the factors under this category to be considered for the water, sanitation, nutrition, and health promotion of the pupil. In any country an effective educational policy should be promoted and organised so that the children could be educated by ensuring quality and effective development in a consistent manner throughout the developmental age. Guidelines dealing with disaster situations have a very high emphasis on the mental health care and resiliency building (Mental health and Psychosocial Support) among the students. Facilitating normalisation, establishing routine life, strengthening disaster preparedness, and reducing traumatic experiences, are the goals of psychosocial support interventions in disaster. The Sphere Handbook (2011) has considered psychosocial support activities and school intervention under each of its sectoral domains. These guidelines depicta wider frame to work within in the education system immediately after a disaster or as part of long-term rehabilitation. In practice, adapting and following each of these guidelines requires a strong commitment of the local government, humanitarian actors and flow of resources. The model of intervention that was practiced in Tsunami affected schools of the South Indian Districtin Kanyakumari has highlighted the series of work that was done in a sequence. INTERVENTION IN TSUNAMI AFFECTED SCHOOLS The researcher and author of this article was involved in this project work as research coordinator throughhis post-graduate institute and subsequently with an international organisation to work for the Tsunami affected population in various states of South India and a few Asian countries. Immediately after the Tsunami struck the South Indian coastline, there searcher—as part of the response team for psychosocial support—started working with survivors, providing psychosocial care. The response strategy was to immediately train a large number of student volunteers to work in the camp and provide basic psychological first aid. The final year student volunteers from the local post-graduate schools of social work were trained through a sensitisation workshop for 10 hours and deployed in the camps to work with the survivors (NIMHANS, 2007). This intervention was mainly to listen to the survivors, helping the families to get together, facilitating their basic necessities through the camp organisers, organising the paper work to get the relief, giving information, facilitating treatment in case of need and other related work for making life comfortable to the possible extent within the camps. The Psychological First Aid (PFA)

108


with the survivors of different age groups helped the people to organise and accept the reality. The PFA was immediately conducted with the population of high risk, e.g. the families with death, multiple losses, missing of loved one, families with aged and specifically with the children (Indian Red Cross Society, Kanyakumari District Branch, 2008). STRATEGIES OF INTERVENTIONS IN SCHOOLS IN KANYAKUMARI DISTRICT Following the international guidelines the mental health and psychosocial interventions in a school were designed and implemented over three years, with sustainability components built-in within the programme to ensure the impact of intervention and subsequent desired work continued. The strategies that were adapted were time bound as well as sequential. Therefore strategies were built considering the goal of the project of developing healthier and safer communities for the tsunami survivors. For school intervention the objectives were three-fold, first; developing resiliency among the children affected by the tsunami through various mental health and psychosocial support activities; second, facilitating physical health and well-being of the children; and third, creating a culture of safety through safe school practices. Based on these objectives the programme activities were developed. (a) Building resiliency among the children and adolescents through creative expressive activities. (b) Developing a participatory model for working in the school for designing, planning, implementing and evaluating the programme. (c) Capacity building of the teachers and other members of the school community to ensure rebuilding and rehabilitation. (d) Organising activities towards creating “sense of place” among the children in the school; developing “child friendly” atmosphere and culture of safety. IMPORTANT CONCEPTS FOR SCHOOL INTERVENTIONS Before going into the details of the school interventions, some important concepts are discussed here that are relevant for further explanation about the intervention strategies in the schools. The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support: IASC (2007) Guidelines defined the term as “any type of local or outside support that aims to protect or promote psychosocial wellbeing and/or prevent or treat mental disorder”. Psychosocial refers to the dynamic relationship between the psychological and social dimension of a person, where the one influences the other. The psychological dimension includes the internal, emotional and thought processes, feelings and reactions. The social dimension includes relationships, family and community networks, social values and cultural practices. Psychosocial support refers to the actions that address both the psychological and social needs of individuals (Hansen, 2008, p. 184). Considering this definition, the broad range of activities which


109

need be carried out include working with the individual, groups, families, social institutions and in the community at large. Resiliency: “Resiliency is the capacity to transform oneself in positive way after a difficult event” (Annan, Castelli, Devreux, and Locatelli, 2003) and in other words, resiliency is an increased or enhanced ability to cope with difficult situations. In the process of development, the child interacts with the family, friends, teachers, and others and develop more inner resources. Children and adolescents learn and adopt coping mechanisms from the environment they live in. It is very important that they receive an environment from which they can learn and build their ability to cope. In this context mental health and psychosocial support interventions are those interventions which are designed for the psychological and social development of the children following disasters. Creative expressive activities: Children cannot express themselves with words so well. Adolescents are hesitant to talk about their thoughts as many social norms and restrictions are imposed on them. There are some methods and activities by which the children can express their feelings, emotions, views, and opinion. These methods of expression are called creative expressive methods, and activities are conducted by using drawing, story-telling, creative writing, clay modeling, school drama/skit etc. Playor gamesas a form of physical activity also helps a lot to express their ideas and develop new thoughts (Sekar, Biswas, Bhadra, Jayakumar, and Kumar, 2005). Child friendly Space: This denotes a physical space within the living area of the survivors or in the school to mitigate emotional and psychological impact of the disaster on the children by practicing the activities that provide a caring and normalising environment (UNICEF, 2012). A child friendly approach allows the children to express their views and also allow the children to participate in making a better environment for themselves. The child friendly approach is characterised by five main points which were ensured through the projects implementation in the tsunami affected schools in Kanyakumari District. (a) The school environment should be actively designed to ensure that the children feel free from any threat and hazards from the immediate environment. (b) Recovery programmes should be participatory; specifically, the involvement of teachers, parents, and local leaders would ensure effective planning and implementation. (c) The children in the school have a chance to develop skills through various experiential learnings, facilitated by the teachers. (d) The educational system ensures equal opportunities of the marginalised group, and the children who have faced the direct impact of disaster. (e) The physical health is an integral part of growth and development of the children. Sense of Place: With various loss and damage the specific problem which the disaster survivors face is the loss of ‘sense of place’. The sense of place (Fullilove, 1996) deals with identity, familiarity and attachments with the place, environment and neighbors. A change due to disaster disrupts this equilibrium of the society, predictable daily routine activities and feelings of safety. In the rehabilitation process, developing ‘sense of place’

110


among children is vital for their growth. Mcmillan and Chavis (1986) propose that ‘sense of community’ is composed of four elements,(1)membership, (2) influence, (3) integration and fulfillment of needs, (4) shared emotional connections. This concept is being used for the development of the school atmosphere after a disaster. Membership means a sense of identity, belonging and working together for a common purpose and goal by the school community and specifically for the children. Influence reflects that the members have equal opportunities of participation in the activities in schools and could influence the planning, decision making or implementation process for their own well-being. The group norms are followed, and shared responsibilities facilitate acohesive atmosphere. Integration and fulfillment of needs refer to an integrated approach with multiple activities with a common goal orientation. Shared emotional connections consider the common identity, familiarity among the community people who are living in the same place, have common cultural orientation, language, pattern of living and many other factors like, shared history, common experiences, and even the presence of a spiritual bond (Holms, Patterson, & Stalling, 2003). The school interventions were designed in the tsunami affected schools to ensure development of ‘sense of place’ among the children. Safe School: This concept has been used in different aspects of safety such as, safety from crisis, events of disaster, gender based violence, psychological, physical abuse, free from threats or dangers etc. Within the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2015) it is emphasised that education for disaster reduction should be part of the curriculum and “disaster reduction begins at school” (UNESCO, 2005). Safe school programmes ensure the culture of safety among the students and teachers by understanding the hazards and risks within the school and immediate environment, and utilising the resources to mitigate the same. The regular practice and update ensures the practice of safety rules based on the hazards that the school children may face (UN-ISDR, 2007). Intervention in Tsunami Affected Schools of Kanyakumari District Immediately after the tsunami the volunteers in the relief camp started working with the children to facilitate care and support. Within a few days, the local NGOs of the area were contacted and also the government systems or support mechanisms were identified. Subsequently capacity building for psychosocial care (following the manuals of psychosocial support of NIMHANS) was conducted for the NGO and government staff who were directly working with the survivors in the relief camps and temporary shelters. The NGO staff were mainly field workers, coordinators of the programme, the community level volunteers, self-help group members or other community leaders. From the government sector, mainly the school teachers, health workers and ‘anaganwadi” (pre-school teachers) were trained. This group of trained workers sustained a continuous psychosocial care activity with the affected children through regular meetings, sessions with parents and through close interaction with the children by using multiple play materials and mediums. At every stage of development, facilitating recovery is most crucial for children and adolescents. The following diagram was used as conceptual frame to work with the children in the tsunami affected areas.


111

Diagram 2: Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for the Children and Adolescents Affected by Disasters

Sekar et al. (2005), Informational Manual-3, Psychosocial Care for Children.

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Activities in the Relief Camps and Temporary Shelters With the children and adolescents, creative expressive activities were started immediately after the tsunami and continued on a regular basis even after the reopening of the schools. The modalities and purpose of creative expressive activities by using different mediums

112


were changed as per the individual needs. Further, the uses of these mediums were published for effective and wider use by NIMHANS (2007). Phases of Creative Expressive Activities by Using Various Mediums The creative expressive activities are designed to be phased in, in a manner that the children could express their sufferings and learn new ways of coping to become resilient. In the first phase, immediately after a disaster, the essential task was to allow the children to talk about their suffering due to the disaster. Therefore, children were taken through the exercise of drawing, storytelling, listening to the teacher and talking about the difficulties. By doing so, the children expressed about their personal loss, problems in daily life, difficulties in family and schools. Subsequently, the children were engaged in activities to talk about the changes and encouraged to look for more positive changes in the surrounding environment; as the rehabilitation work started, more flow of aids and support came in. Gradually, the children expressed about their hope and vision for the future that encouraged them to think beyond the situation of disaster and more to look for the future opportunities. At this stage the students were taken through the exercises that also encouraged learning their duties, responsibilities for their personal growth, towards their family, community and other relevant topics (Sekar, et al., 2005). Various creative expressive activities used over time are explained in brief. Drawing as Medium for Expression Drawing as method of expression was used widely in the initial days. Free drawing (draw any thing they like) were more common, and further issue based drawing (disaster events, changes in the surroundings, self-portrait, drawing of family picture etc.) were conducted. Gradually the topics were changed. Initially the topics were to draw the Tsunami, the wide sea, the disaster day in dream, then it was to talk about loss, the changes around and also allowed them to visual their future by drawing “what I want to be”.

These drawings depict how a child was able to talk about tsunami, about herself and her hope for the future. (The workshop was coordinated by the author in a school of Melemanakudi, Kanyakumari District).


113

Story Telling as a Medium of Expression Stories fire a child’s imagination. Story telling is a very effective method by which children can express feelings in a simple manner. Some children are shy and may take time to talk about their feelings. Hence, encouraging the children to talk about their feelings by giving clues through stories of real life help in facilitating expression and development of new thought. The trained teacher and volunteers developed various stories about how a child reacted after the tsunami, or how a surviving child became successful in future. Many a time the children were shown picture cards to talk about. Graphic cartoon pictures of pigs showing different activities were used with the children to relate their condition with the picture and express their views. These picture cards greatly stimulated discussion and expression among the children.

Source: Tsunami Disaster: Psychosocial care for children; Information Manual-3 (Sekar, Biswas, Bhadra, Jayakumar, & Kumar, 2005). Such story cards were used.

WRITING AS A MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION Creative writing as a method of expression is very useful at the pre-adolescent and adolescent stage. In this age the children are at times introvert and feel more comfortable in writing than talking about themselves. It is not necessary for them to share what they have written if they donot want to do so. A number of writing activities were done in groups, and also with individual students. The different topics for the writing exercise were “The most important event of my life/The best thing that ever happened to me/I am most happy-sad when…./A dream/How I would describe myself/My best friend/The person I trust the most and why?”. The children had also written various stories, songs, poems, and drama as they liked to express their thoughts. When sea came all the children and adult were crying and shouting crying for help. So, many people were running with their clothes and few of their belongings. Tsunami occupied half of the village. All the things like, houses, roof, boats, and furniture were broken. After the tsunami water receded, some people came back many did not. They are dead. My mother too! She was floating beside me. Then someone hold me, pulled towards a roof of a house. My mom did not return. Still I wait. It created problem in every one’s life in Malemanakudi. For the first time I meet such an evil in my life. I cannot forget it. All of us became poor suddenly and left with sorrow and nothing to eat or wear. —A child survivor

114


PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES FOR EXPRESSION To overcome stress reactions, for a child or adolescent, physical activity is one of most important methods to bring normalcy. In games the children learn to follow certain norms and behave in a certain manner which is desirable and accepted within the environment and by others. These games also facilitated sharing responsibilities, learning and use of the skills like decision making, and problem solving at different points in time. Physical activities largely helped in externalising the problems and traumatic experiences and allowed the children to get involved in the new activities. Various games were used to be conducted by the volunteers and teachers to encourage psychomotor activity and interaction.

Picture Source: pamphlet on Psychosocial Support for children in disaster, by NIMHANS, Bangalore.http://www.nimhans.kar.nic.in/dis_man/post_child2.pdf

In the camp situation many of these interventions were conducted in the non-formal school set-up. In various disaster interventions, mental health interventions in non-formal school with the children were seen as very effective in brining changes in the immediate environment (Boothby & Ager, 2010; Husain, 2005; Ramappa & Bhadra, 2004; Chachra, 2004). Creative expressive activities were an essential part of the school recovery programme and subsequently other activities were promoted to support the school recovery programme as a whole. INTERVENTION FOR RECOVERY DURING REHABILITATION IN SCHOOLS As the formal school started, recovery programmes focused on these schools in a designed manner to implement various concepts of international guidelines (like, safe school, child friendly school and child friendly space) in a structured fashion (Bhadra, 2013). The main features of this programme were: 1. Primary assessment in the school by the professionals by involving the teachers, students and parents 2. Development of proposals for facilitating the school recovery 3. Administrative clearance from Education Department of Government to work in the schools


115

4. Training of the teachers by focusing on the three main issues that includes, facilitating the concept and approach of child-friendly space, developing sense of place in the schools and safe school protocol. 5. Developing the school committee by involving the teachers, parents and student representatives to facilitate a community school interaction and to ensure holistic recovery of the children. 6. Conducting joint assessment by the students, teachers and parents and developing the three dimensional school map to understand the situation and the possibilities of making changes. 7. Designing various health and psychosocial interventions and events that will encourage the children to participate and gain resiliency to deal with future challenges. The school recovery programme was a series of continuous activities that ensure creating child friendly space, developing sense of place and the safe school programme. Diagram 3: Process and Outcome of the School Intervention during Rehabilitation Phase

(Bhadra and Pratheepa, 2009)

Capacity Building In this process capacity building to provide adequate knowledge and skills to work with the children become most vital. The training was conducted in two phases. In the first

116


phase the teachers were trained on psychosocial interventions and health promotion. The psychosocial components included, working with children by using different mediums, developing positive habits among the students, facilitating study habits, organising various skills (Communication, decision making, problem solving, inter-personal relations etc.) and development activities. Heath interventions included promoting health and hygiene, providing first aid, awareness about prevention of various communicable diseases, nutritional support, etc. (Singh and Mini, 2009). In the second phase the teachers were specifically trained on ‘safe school’ intervention as part of disaster preparedness. Developing School Committee and Community Participation Following the training programme the teachers collaborated with project staff and, through community interaction, developed the school committee that could design the interventions according to the needs of the children and community perspective. The parents, village leaders, and traditional leaders became most crucial members in the school committee and facilitated this process of school intervention. The committee members were oriented in a meeting about the concept of recovery programmes and the facilities that could be provided through the project in the school. They were also provided with various reading materials and had an individual meeting to explain the school recovery programme and ensure that the school committee can take up the process as their own. The committee took an active role in mobilising local resources to strengthen the activities in the school. Psychosocial and Health Activities in the Classroom In the classroom teachers started conducting mental health and psychosocial support activities with the specific goal to reduce fear, to talk about the issues, changes after the tsunami over time, developing positive attitudes towards studies, etc. On psychosocial support the activities were ‘build the strength of group’, ‘support your family’, ‘help your friend’, ‘develop and achieve your dream’, ‘study well’, ‘develop concentration and motivation’ etc. All these sessions were designed to be conducted in groups with the students based on experiential learning and participatory methodology. Similarly there was sessions on the health and hygiene promotion that dealt with topics like, ‘fool hygiene techniques’, ‘hand washing practice’, ‘drinking water solution’, ‘water/air/vector born disease and prevention’, ‘first aid’ etc. These sessions were also focused on specific learning points and skills orientation for the student to strengthen the behavioural pattern for adapting healthy practices. For conducting these activities each of the class rooms was provided with a ‘school chest’ that contains the materials (drawing books, note books, colour, art papers, craft papers, scale, pencils, sketch pen and other stationary) for conducting various sessions of drawing, painting, and writing to facilitate expression among the children as well as to learn new skills and build resiliency. The children in a school were also provided with a recreational kit that included the play materials.


117

Activities to Promote the Educational Environment The schools designed activities for developing ‘sense of place’, like beautifying the school, painting the walls, developing specific murals for giving messages. In each of the activities the school committee took an active role in mobilising support. Each school also had special provisions to improve their health and hygiene facilities to ensure that the students can have basic facilities in the school to promote the educational environment and maintain a healthy life style. These activities included improving the water facilities in the toilets, hand washing facilities, drainage systems, establishing waste disposal systems and organising hygienic facilities in the kitchen and dining facilities for mid-day meals. Safe School Initiatives The schools implemented the safe school programme; developed a school map, assessed the HVCA (Hazard, Vulnerability and Capacity assessment) and practiced the mock drill according to the safe school protocol developed by them. As part of the plan 5% of students were trained as a special response team and they were provided with physical and psychological First Aid training, and developed a school disaster response team in coordination with the teachers. Impact of Intervention The recovery programme covered a wider sector of recovery issues that are due to the disaster as well as facilitating normal development to ensure building resiliency among the children. The school health interventions improved the overall condition of the children in schools and the participatory approach helped to develop a sustainable system that facilitated practice of resiliency building activities, safe school protocol, and health and hygiene programmes. The evaluation of the programme showed that the students feel their school is attractive, teachers are open to talk about tsunami experiences, and they feel good about participating in various activities like; school, classroom beautification, developing a school mural, learning about various health hygiene practices and actively participating in school mapping and mock drill exercises. The teachers, parents and other school committee members felt that they have been able take active part in the recovery process and also been able to mobilise more support from their own community because of the school intervention programme (IFRC, 2008; The Hindu, 2009). For example, after discussing safe drinking water and the need to repair the toilets, improve kitchen facilities, or the need of a library, the school committee members mobilised more than half of the financial support for such activities. The school intervention provided the students a sense of belonging, identity and an improved sense of security with their peers and teachers that contributed feelings of being protected and comfortable in their school surroundings. CONCLUSION Disaster intervention is a crucial role for the social work profession, and mental health psychosocial support is further a very specialised area, where social workers have used the

118


social work principles and methods specifically, working with individuals, facilitating group interventions and ultimately community mobilisation and participation for institution building (Des Marais, Bhadra, and Dyer, 2012). In India development of policy on mental health and psychosocial support in disaster (Government of India, December, 2009) is also being chaired by social work Professor K Sekar. Facilitating recovery after a disaster among the children and adolescents is very important in dealing with disaster related trauma and to strengthen subsequent development among the children. Thus, a mental health recovery is a vital aspect for gaining normalcy after a disaster. Reconstruction of structural and physical facilities only become vibrant when mental health recovery of the learner becomes the central theme of disaster intervention. A disaster intervention needs to be most systematic that gives chance to the children to express and develop their skills to be resilient, encourage community and school interaction, reflect the needs of the children in a most comprehensive manner and ensure a developmental process by creating a child friendly space and safe atmosphere. REFERENCES Annan, J., Castelli, L., Devreux, A. and Locatelli, E. (2003). Training manual for teachers, AVSI. Edinburgh: AVSI. Retrieved January 9, 2005, from http://www.forcedmigration.org/psychosocial/ papers/WiderPapers/Teachers%20manual.pdf Bhadra, S. (2006). Impact of disaster and life events among the survivors of disasters. Bangalore: NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences). Bhadra, S. (2012). Psychosocial support for the children affected by communal violence in Gujarat, India. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 9(3), 212–232. Bhadra, S. (2013). Community based psychosocial support programme for resiliency building in Tsunami rehabilitation of Kanyakumari District. Journal of social work, Special issue on Building Resilient Communities: Communitarian Social Work, 3(8), 66–86. Bhadra, S. and Pratheepa, C.M. (2009, November 8th and 9th). Strengthening Communities and recovery Through Psychosocial Support. Retrieved June 26, 2013, from National Institute of Disaster Managment: 2nd India Disaster Management Congress: http://nidm.gov.in/idmc2/PDF/Presentations/ Psycho_Social/Pres3.pdf Boothby, N. and Ager, A. (2010). Promoting a protective environment for children affected by disaster and war. In J. Garbarino, and G. Sigman, A child’s right to a healthy environment—The Loyola University Symposium on the Human Rights of Children (pp. 105–121). New York: Springer. Bordoloi, S. and Khoja, A. (2006). Development of a psychosocial questionnaire and a worksheet for teachers, parents, students and other school personnel to assess educational needs of survivors of the tsunami in Calang, Indonesia. In J. O. Diaz, R. Lakshminarayana and S.R. Murthy (Eds.), Advances in disaster mental health and psychological support (pp. 153–163). New Delhi: Voluntary Health Association of India Press. Chachra, S. (2004). Disasters and mental health in India: an institutional response: Action aid India. In J. O. Diaz, S. Murthy, and R. Lakshminarayana (Eds.), Disaster mental health in India (pp. 151–160). New Delhi: Indian Red Cross Society. Copeland, E.P. and Hobson, F.C. (2004). Health promotion in schools. In Elsevier, Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology (pp. 159–166). New York: Elsevier Inc. Des Marais, E., Bhadra, S. and Dyer, A. (2012). In the wake of Japan’s triple disaster: Building capacity through international collaboration.Advances in Social Work, 13(2), 340–357.


119

Fullilove, M.T. (1996). Psychiatric implications of displacement: Contributions from the psychology of place. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153(12), 1516–1523. Government of India (December, 2009). National disaster managment guidelines, psychosocial support and mental health services in disasters. New Delhi: A Publication of National Disaster Managment Authority, Government of India. Hansen, P. (2008). Psychosocial interventions a handbook. In W. Agen, Ed.). Copenhagen: International Federation Reference Centre, for Psychosocial Support. Holms, G.E., Patterson, J.R. and Stalling, J.E. (2003). Sense of place: Issues in counseling and development. Journal of Humanities, Education and Development, 42. Husain, S.A. (2005). The experience of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Psychosocial consequences of warattrocities on children. In J. Lopez-lbor, G. Christodoulou, M. Maj, N. Sartorius, and A. Okasha (Eds.), Disaster and mental health (pp. 239–246). West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. IFRC (2008, July 21). Federation-wide tsunami semi-annual report 2004–2008: India appeal No. 28/2004. Retrieved from Reliefweb: http://reliefweb.int/report/india/federation-wide-tsunami-semiannual-report-2004–2008-india-appeal-no-282004 Indian Red Cross Society, Kanyakumari District Branch (2008). Teacher’s manual; integrated recovery programme in school for children. Nagercoil: Indian Red Cross Society (Supported by American Red Cross). Retrieved from http://www.pscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/gallery/2013/03/Teachermanua KKTRP.pdf Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) (2007). Guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support in emergency settings (MHPSS). Geneva: IASC. Mcmillan, D.W. and Chavis, D.M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6–23. NIMHANS (2007). Conference on psychosocial care and mental health services in disasters. Summary report and recommendations of the national conference on psychosocial care and mental health services in disasters (pp. 1–46). Bangalore: NIMHANS. NIMHANS (2007). Mediums for working with children. Bangalore: Every Child India. Nouri, J., Mansouri, N., Abbaspour, M., Karbassi, A.R. and Omidvari, M. (2011). Designing a developed model for assessing the disaster induced vulnerability value in educational centers. Safety Science, 49, 679–685. Ramappa, G. and Bhadra, S. (2004). Institutional responses- Oxfam (India): Psycho social support programme for survivors of the earthquake. In R. Lakshminarayana, R.S. Murthy, and J.O. Diaz, Disaster mental health in India (pp. 140–160). New Delhi: Indian Red Cross Society. Satapathy, S. and Yoshida, M. (2007). Sri Lanka: Integrating disaster risk reduction into education through teacher training curricula building teachers’ DRR capacity across borders. In UN/ISDR, Towards a culture of prevention: Disaster risk reduction begins at school-good practices and lessons learned (pp. 33–36). Geneva: International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Sekar, K., Bhadra, S., Jayakumar, C., Aravindraj, E., Henry, G. and Kumar, K.K. (2005). Facilitation manual for trainers of trainees in natural disaster. Bangalore: NIMHANS and Care India. Sekar, K., Biswas, G., Bhadra, S., Jayakumar, C. and Kumar, K.K. (2005). Tsunami disaster: Psychosocial care for children; information manual-3. Bangalore: NIMHANS-CARE-India. Singh, N. and Mini, J. (2009, November 8th and 9th). Important of community health assessment through community based approach in post disaster period. Retrieved June 26, 2013, from National Institute of Disaster Managment, 2nd India Disaster Management Congress: http://nidm.gov.in/idmc2/PDF/ Presentations/PHE/Pres3.pdf The Hindu (2009, September 13). Red Cross comes to the aid of affected people. Retrieved January 23, 2013, from The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/09/13/stories/2009091350990300.htm

120


The Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) (2005). Minimum standards for education in emergencies, chronic crises and early. London: INEE Network. The Sphere project (2011). Humanitarian charter and minimum standards in humanitarian response. United Kingdom: The Sphere Project. UNESCO (2005). UN decade of education for sustainable development, 2005–2014. Paris: UNESCO— Education for sustainable development. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0014/001416/141629E.pdf UNICEF (2005). Child friendly school. Geneva: UNICEF. Retrieved May 23, 2013, from http://www.unicef.org/lifeskills/index_7260.html UNICEF (2012, May 25). Child friendly schools. Retrieved August 27, 2013, from www.unicef.org: http://www.unicef.org/lifeskills/index_7260.html UN-ISDR (2007). Towards a culture of prevention:Disaster risk reduction begins at school- good practices and lessons learned.Geneva: International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. WHO (2003). Information series on school health document: The physical school environment: An essential component of a health-promoting school. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO (2005). The physical school environment, as essential component of health—promoting school. Geneva.: World Health Organization. WHO (2006). Psychosocial support for tsunami affected populations in India. Non-communicable diseases and mental health cluster. New Delhi: WHO Country Office, India.