Building Resilience in Schools in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

The Building Resilience Project (BRP), a project that was developed in Israel in the wake of terrorism and war, was implemented in Biloxi, Mississippi one year after Hurricane Katrina. The BRP is a teacher-based intervention that focuses on empowering teachers to cope with their own stressors and those of their students in the aftermath of trauma. This article examines the ecological model of the BRP, and offers a description of the teacher workshops while also providing the rationale for implementing a teacherbased intervention in Biloxi. Feedback and follow-up data from participants' selfreports is presented, as well as recommendations for future implementation.Keywords natural disaster, trauma, school-based intervention, teacher workshop, postdisaster intervention, resilience building, disaster mental health, crisis intervention In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept the Gulf Coast of Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, killing over a thousand people and leaving even more homeless. In Biloxi alone, at least 53 people lost their lives, and 25% of the homes were completely destroyed, while most of the remaining homes were severely damaged. Rhoads, Pearman, and Rick (2007) described residents' poor health and insufficient access to care before and after the hurricane. Many of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina experienced posttraumatic symptoms and those who survived face significant roadblocks on their path to recovery. In Mississippi, many businesses had to be closed, causing wide-scale unemployment and subsequent migration. School communities also suffered, as significant numbers of their student body and faculty left. Rebuilding efforts have been slow and painful and were often hampered by government and insurance company bureaucracies. As a result, most residents along the Gulf Coast have been exposed to trauma and loss, both from the hurricane experience itself and the concomitant long term stress associated with the rebuilding process.For children, exposure to traumatic events such as natural disasters, terrorism, and community violence is often linked to psychological distress, as children lack both the ability to process the trauma and the resources to effectively cope with their experiences. Like adults, children can develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid

Teachers as first responders in tragedy: The role of emotion in teacher adjustment eighteen months post-earthquake

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The Impact of a Substance Use Prevention Program on the Health Literacy of Youth in Guatemala City

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The Key to Resilience: A Peer Based Youth Leader Training and Support Program

“…Recent studies in a variety of environments give a strong indication that developing resilience skills is both feasible and practical (Baum, Rotter, Reidler and Brom 2009). For instance, in one quasi-experimental study conducted in Israel, teachers who participated in a four-session workshop program of resilience building that included tools to be used in the classroom showed reduced post traumatic symptoms as well as decreased anxiety levels in their students (Baum et al 2013).…”

“…The program was based largely on the Building Resilience Intervention (BRI), an initiative developed at the start to train school teachers in resilience-building skills in order to enable them to successfully support students suffering from post-traumatic distress. The BRI was developed by the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma (ICTP) in the wake of terrorism and war, and has been successfully implemented in educational settings throughout Israel and abroad (Baum et al 2009;Baum 2005). The focus of the program is on empowering local professional staff (often educators) to deal proactively with the threat of disaster, the exposure to long-term stress, and possible exposure to trauma by providing them with information and tools to use both personally and in the classroom.…”