When Their World Falls Apart: Helping Families and Children Manage the Effects of Disasters
Rosenfeld, Lawrence B and Caye, Joanne S and Ofra, Ayalon et al. (2005).
Washington, D.C.: NASW; 488 pages. $54.99. ISBN 0871013584.
Globally, those who provide support to children and families in the wake of disasters strive to make stressful circumstances less intense through timely, caring, professional, and effective responses. An ideal resource for disaster responders working with children and families, then, would provide the potential responder not only with a strong working knowledge of disaster principles as they apply to children and families, but also a set of key conceptual and practical prevention and intervention skills. In When Their World Falls Apart: Helping Families and Children Manage the Effects of Disasters, four highly-recognized authors combine their international talents to present helpers worldwide with this much-needed, practical-yet-thorough guide to disaster mental health preparedness and response activities focused on supporting children and families.
Most certainly, anyone who is involved or will potentially be involved in providing support to children and families whose lives are impacted by disaster will benefit from the extensive background information and summary of disaster-related research presented throughout this book’s pages. At the same time, this book provides a focus on disaster mental health-related prevention and intervention activities for those desiring to directly apply their knowledge to their work, specifically with children and families. In wise recognition of the potential for knowledge gaps to exist amongst this group of readers with regard to disasters and disaster response principles, the authors comprehensively review what is currently known about disasters and their impact on children, families, and the communities in which they live, and additionally intersperse detailed descriptions of a variety of historically disastrous events. Further, the authors review the basic principles underlying the developmental, family systems, and ecological theory approaches to understanding children and families and the larger contexts in which they live.
Without a doubt, the authors have painstakingly done their research in the creation of this text. Each chapter’s bibliography consists of an incredible collection of works that are much-cited, highly respected, and high caliber in and of themselves, and also which address disasters on an international scale. To the reader’s benefit, many of the most significant pieces of research to the topic at hand are summarized in the Spotlight on Research dialog boxes which occur in various points in the book.
Two particularly unique features of the book are the supplemental CD and the Touching Reality dialog-box activities scattered throughout the text, both of which aim to provide thought-provoking scenarios and questions for self-reflection or group discussion. The supplemental CD provides video streams, many containing personal accounts of disastrous circumstances. The Touching Reality activities present the reader with a way to apply the text in an experiential manner so as to “realize” the impact on the children and families who face such circumstances. This variety of formats for reviewing the topic would particularly be advantageous when using the text in a classroom or other group setting; however, I found them helpful in putting the presented factual material into personal perspective for myself as an individual reader as well.
Given the breadth of coverage and incredible presentation of information, shortcomings of this book are few. There are two limitations which I feel should be recognized, however. First, in discussing prevention and intervention activities, the authors subtly make it known that such activities (i.e., group interventions, trauma intervention, etc.) should be facilitated by qualified professionals, but a more direct explanation of this fact would clarify this point for readers who otherwise may be well-intentioned but not realize the potential for harm in conducting such interventions without the adequate level of professional training. Working with children and family systems adds complexity and requires additional levels of sensitivity, and it seems wise to make known the need for specific training (beyond simply reading this book).
Secondly, while I recognize that a single book cannot be a library and that all authors must make content decisions, I do feel readers of the book would have benefited from two additional chapters or special sections—one on the invaluable role of non-governmental organizations in attempting to meet the needs of children and families following disasters, and the other addressing the critical role cultural background plays in child, family, and community responses to disastrous events. Whether a helper is providing support in the field or in an office setting, awareness of each of these topics is inevitably important. The helper can play a key role in connecting families with resources if he/she understands what is available and how to guide families to those resources. At the same time, the helper must be aware of how a family’s belief system or other cultural factors may play a role in their reluctance to ask for assistance.
Globally, disaster prevention efforts aimed at children and families are often not prioritized and so are often not implemented despite the benefits they may bear. In providing their school-based CORE model for prevention efforts with children, the authors have set the stage for this text to serve as a guide for implementation within educational sites at local, state, national, and international levels. Additionally, in its entirety, this text can be utilized to help train disaster mental health professionals who are specifically focused on providing psychological support to children and families—a body of professionals that is rarely in abundance. As a fellow disaster mental health professional, this book is highly regarded and recommended for others’ libraries as well.
Reviewer Information
Family and Children’s Services, Inc.
Trisha Miller received her doctorate degree in psychology (clinical/disaster psychology), with an emphasis on work with children and families, from The University of South Dakota. She is currently employed at Family and Children’s Services in Tulsa, OK as an infant/toddler mental health specialist in several of Tulsa’s Head Start and Early Head Start sites. Her interests include working with children and their families, particularly those who have experienced or are currently experiencing traumatic life events.