Innovative Disaster Counseling Approaches with Children and Youth

Children and youth from all cultures are at high risk following a disaster because of their dependency on caregivers and their stage of cognitive and emotional development. Without an available caregiver to help interpret the traumatic event, most children internalize their experiences making them more vulnerable to future stressors. Traumatic events also can lead to psychological and environment dislocation of children from ethnocultural support structures and systems of meaning. Engagement of families is often a significant barrier that prevents the utilization of existing services. An innovative counseling approach is presented that was utilized following the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. This program successfully provided counseling to over 600 bereaved children