(This is part of my assignment on types of disaster and psycho-social impact of disaster, references are given at the end)
Content:
- Psychosocial Impact of Disaster on Vulnerable Group
- Children
- Women
- Elderly
- Differently Able
- Social Work Intervention with Survivors of Disaster
- Conclusion
- References
1.
PSYCHOSOCIAL
IMPACT OF DISASTER ON VULNERABLE GROUPS
Disasters do not affect everyone in
the same way. At an individual level, some may experience a disaster with few
or no psychological consequences, while others will go through the same
disaster and be emotionally devastated. Beyond individual variation, certain
categories of people are especially vulnerable or vulnerable in specific ways.
1.1
CHILDREN
Two myths are potential barriers to
recognizing children’s responses to disaster and must be rejected: (1) that
children are innately resilient and will recover rapidly, even from severe
trauma; and (2) that children, especially young children, are not affected by
disaster unless they are disturbed by their parents’ responses. Both of these beliefs
are false. A wealth of evidence indicates that children experience the effects
of disaster doubly.
Most children respond sensibly and
appropriately to disaster, especially if they experience the protection,
support, and stability of their parents and other trusted adults. However, like
adults, they may respond to disaster with a wide range of symptoms. Their responses
are generally similar to those of adults, although they may appear in more direct,
less disguised form.
Among younger children, anxiety
symptoms may appear in generalized form as fears (separation, strangers,
animals, or sleep disturbances. They may withdraw socially or may lose previously
acquired developmental skills (e.g., toilet training). Among the older ones, anxiety
symptoms may appear in sleep disturbances, irritability, or aggressive behavior
and angry outbursts may appear. Other changes in behaviour includes mood swing,
obvious anxiety and fearfulness, withdrawal, loss of interest in activities,
etc.
As children approach adolescence,
their responses become increasingly like adult responses. Greater levels of
aggressive behaviors, defiance of parents, delinquency, substance abuse, and
risk-taking behaviors may be evident. School performance may decline. Wishes
for revenge may be expressed. Adolescents are especially unlikely to seek out counselling.
1.2
WOMEN
Women’s roles and experiences
create special vulnerability in the face of disaster. In poorer countries,
women are more likely to die in disasters than men are. In richer countries, as
well, women often show higher rates of post disaster psychological distress –
depression, PTSD, and anxiety (Enrenreich, 2001). Several aspects of women’s
experience of disaster may contribute to these results:
·
Women are often assigned the role of family
caregivers. As such, they must stay with and assist other family members. This
may affect their willingness to leave their homes when a disaster (such as a
storm) threatens.
·
Women may be more isolated and home-bound due to their
traditional roles. As a result, they may have less access to information (both
before a disaster and after).
·
In the aftermath of disaster, women may face another
threat: violence. This threat may take several forms like physical or emotional
abuse from their spouse and sexual exploitation by other.
·
Women may also be exposed to rape and other forms of
violence in shelters or refugee camps. In war situations, women and girls are
extremely vulnerable.
·
Health care facilities in shelters and refugee camps
often do not attend to women’s needs with regard to reproductive health, and
providing for relief of other sources of strain on women, such as
responsibilities for childcare, often get a low priority.
·
In the aftermath of disaster, women who have been
widowed by the disaster may find it harder to remarry than men. Lacking skills
that are saleable in the paid job market, they may be left destitute.
The experience of women in
disaster, it should be emphasized, can create opportunities for women, as well.
Women may have better social networks and hence, more social support than men.
They may emerge as the leaders of grass-roots level organizations. They may be
able to use disaster aid to develop skills and acquire tools and take on
non-traditional roles.
1.3
THE ELDERLY
Reports on the responses of the
elderly to disaster are inconsistent. In some disasters, they seem no more vulnerable
than younger people. In others, they appear more vulnerable. Despite the
inconsistency in formal research studies, there are reasons to believe that
that the elderly are at increased risk for adverse emotional effects in the
wake of disaster. They may live alone and lack help and other resources.
Depression and other forms of distress among the elderly are readily
overlooked, in part because they may not take on exactly the same symptom
pattern as among younger people. For instance, disorientation, memory loss, and
distractibility may be signs of depression in the elderly.
The elderly are also more
vulnerable to being victimized. In the context of increased stress on the
family and community, meeting their special needs may take on a lowered priority.
One particular issue that may appear is feelings that they have lost their
entire life (loss of children, homes, memorabilia) and that, due to their age,
there is not enough time left in their life to rebuild and recreate.
1.4
THE DIFFERENTLY
ABLED
Although people who are physically challenged
and mentally ill or challenged have distinct needs from one another, all three
groups are at especially high risk in disasters. For those in each group, the
normal patterns of care or assistance that they receive and their own normal
adaptations to produce acceptable levels of functioning are disrupted by
disasters. For instance, supplies of medication, assistive devices such as wheelchairs,
familiar caretakers, and previously effective programs of treatment may become
unavailable. This has both direct effects and increases anxiety and stress.
Stress, in turn, may exacerbate pre-existing mental illness. There may also be
special needs with regard to housing or food.
Those who were mentally ill or
developmentally delayed may also have fewer or less adaptable coping resources
available and less ability to mobilize help for themselves. The ongoing
problems of the disabled may seem to the other victims of the disaster to be of
only minor importance in comparison to their own acute and unaccustomed
suffering. Their disabilities may even seem like an obstacle to dealing with
the disaster itself. The disabled are especially vulnerable to marginalization,
isolation, and to “secondary victimization.” They are at greater risk of
post-disaster malnutrition, infectious disease (e.g., in a shelter situation),
and of the effects of lack of adequate health care.
2.
SOCIAL WORK
INTERVENTION
Social Work practice can adopt
various approaches in intervention with survivors of disaster. At the micro level, we can undertake
psycho-social support of victims and do curative work, at the mezzo level, we can undertake
preventive measures like community mobilization and capacity building, and at
the macro level, we can intervene in
better disaster mitigation and management programmes.
At the micro level, psycho-social support in the context of disasters
refers to comprehensive interventions aimed to address a wide range of
psychosocial problems arising in the aftermath of a disaster. These
interventions help individuals, families and groups to restore social cohesion
and infrastructure along with maintaining their independence and dignity. Psychosocial
support helps in reducing the level of actual and perceived stress that may
prevent adverse psychological and social consequences among disaster affected people
The role of a social worker in providing psycho-social support
to survivors varies from one disaster phase to another. It is thus important to
understand their phase specific roles in the aftermath of a disaster.
A. Immediate phase: At the aftermath of the disaster, the first major role
is to
reduce
the distress of the people by helping them overcome their trauma and
come to terms with their losses (material or life). The second major role is to increase relief and
the third major role is to establish linkages with resources.
B. Later phase: After the immediate phase of disaster is over, the
next major role is the assessment of needs to ensure a
holistic intervention. Interventions at this stage should focus on making
people own the process and become equal partners in the entire rebuilding
process right from planning to implementation. They should help survivors to ensure
that the options are viable, sustainable and owned by the people. Regular
monitoring should form an integral part of the needs assessment because
it could bring out new issues that need to be addressed and lead to innovative
intervention packages for better recovery and rebuilding. And, the final role
is in referring a person to a specialist if the worker is not able to
help the survivors to deal with their problems.
In order to make a holistic and beneficial intervention, the Social worker must adhere to some basic principles, values and understanding including;
- - No one who experiences or witnesses the event is untouched by it
- - Safety and material security underlie emotional stability
- - Disaster stress and grief reactions are normal responses to an abnormal situation.
- - Disaster results in two types of trauma i.e. individual and collective
- - Interventions must be appropriate to the phase of disaster
- - Interactions should be matched to the disaster phase
- - Interventions must take people’s culture into account
- - Direct interventions have an underlying logic
- - Family and Social Support systems are crucial for recovery
- - Recognize that there is a specially vulnerable group in the society
The basic techniques
adopted by social worker in providing psycho-social care to survivors of
disaster are (Sanapathy, 2009):
a) Ventilation: ventilation is a process to help the disaster
survivors in expressing their thoughts, feelings and emotions related to the
disaster and the resulting living conditions. Beside survivors of disaster who
are undergoing traumatic-stress disorder and PTSDs have urgent need to
ventilate, so they should be allowed to do so as it is shown to be therapeutic
to them.
b) Empathy: Looking at the event from the other person’s perspective
and trying to realise the trauma of the other person by keeping himself/herself
in that situation
c). Active Listening: Active listening is an important skill to facilitate
ventilation and develop empathy, which in turn facilitate the whole process of
providing emotional support.
d). Social support: In a disaster situation all the support systems get
disrupted, hence the need to rebuild and restore. The rate at which the
survivors will get over with the trauma of the events will highly depends on
the kind of social support he or she gets, and also social support in any form
is known to be therapeutic.
e). Externalization of Interests: Engaging survivors in small but
productive activity/work would help them in imbibing a positive thinking and
feelings. This technique is very crucial from the participatory community
disaster management approach. This also helps the survivors in providing a
channel to ventilate/express some of their repressed emotions and feelings. In
addition this technique has a positive impact on their self-esteem and self-concept.
Once they are engaged, their minds will be meaningfully occupied and the
physical movement will also add to the increased level of feeling better and
energized.
f). The Value of Relaxation: Introducing relaxation activities
for children (for instance some games, songs, dancing, painting, colouring and
other things) and adults involving physical movement has proved to be very
beneficial in helping survivors recover from their trauma and pain. These
activities will help to channelise their energy and control some stress
producing hormone.
g). Turning towards Religion and Spirituality: Religious
belief or belief in a higher power greater than man is an integral part of human
beings’ existence and this gives great relief and support during critical
periods of their lives. Similarly, spiritualism can also help in rebuilding
shattered life gradually. Therefore, it is important to reinforce the religious
practices and spirituality in the person we are working with because it has
tremendous power to heal the pain and suffering.
Psychosocial and emotional care
services deal with human emotions, thoughts and behaviours in situations when
people are highly distressed due to their exposure to disaster consequences. It
is important to understand that, providing this type of care services is not a
charity or pity rather it is an essential aspect of the human rights of the survivors
to live with dignity in disaster situations.
3.
CONCLUSION
India is a theatre of Disasters.
Natural disasters are quite frequent in different parts of the country, be it
earthquake, Tsunami, cyclone, flood, drought or land-slides. Further the human
made disasters like industrial, chemical, fire, nuclear, riots, refugees,
internally displaced persons and prolonged conflicts and other complex
situations retard country’s overall development. These disasters are quite
devastating and life threatening for the affected people.
Disasters have impacts on
individuals, families and communities. These are not distinct, separable
effects. The devastating effects of disaster on the individuals making up a
family or a community play a major role in creating the family and community effects.
Even more important, social support systems play an extremely important role in
protecting individuals from the impact of the disaster and from the impact of
stress in general. Social disruption both reduces and interferes with the
healing effects of the family and the community and is itself an enormous
source of stress on the individuals who make up the family or community.
Disruption of the family or community may be more psychologically devastating,
both in the short run and especially in the long run, than the disaster itself.
However, disaster tends to
dehumanize the majority population, evident in the manner of their treatment of
survivors. This is most evident amongst
the marginalized section of the society. For example, in every disaster in
India, the medium of meeting the emotional needs of women usually is to arrange
for their marriage. Secondly, community
participation in post-disaster rebuilding seems a goal unattained. The
government always took over a parental role of doling out compensation and the
community are pre-occupied with chasing after the compensation. Thirdly, India does not have a framework for
rehabilitation with a long-term perspective.
In most disasters, there is a massive upsurge of goodwill and material
support at the acute phase, but once the acute phase is over, they are totally
ignored.
India is a vast country and
undeniably disaster prone, however, it must challenge why each and every
disaster is allowed to cause the same amount/level of damages with every new
disaster, again and again.
The most basic issue in psychosocial intervention following disasters is
to transform those affected from being victims to survivors. What
differentiates a victim from a survivor is that the former feels himself subject to a situation over which he has no
control over his environment or himself, whereas a survivor has regained a
sense of control and is able to meet the demands of whatever difficulty
confronts him. A victim is passive and dependent upon others; a survivor is not
– he is able to take an active role in efforts to help his community and himself
recover from the disaster (Ladrido-Ignacio & Perlas, 1995).
4.
REFERENCES
1.
British
Psychological Society (1990): Psychological
Aspects of Disaster; British Psychological Society, Leicester
2.
Cedar
Rapids Counselling & Psychotherapy Group (2008): Phases of Disaster; Back to Business: Health Recovery – Stress
Management, Cedar Rapid (AI)
3.
Centre
for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED): Technical Reference,
Chapter 4. Disaster: Types and Impact, "Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after
Natural Disasters" published by the World Bank in January 2010.
4.
Ehrenreich,
John H, (2001): Coping with Disaster: A
Guidebook to Psychosocial Intervention (Revised Edition), Centre for
Psychology and Society, State University of New York
5.
Ladrido-Ignacio,
L, & Perlas, AP, (1995): From victims
to survivors: Psychosocial intervention in disaster management in the
Philippines. International Journal of Mental Health, 24, pp. 3-51.
6.
Roa,
MVS Srinivasa (2006): Chapter 5:
Psycho-Social Consequences of Disaster in Disaster Management, Oxford
Press, New Delhi
7.
Satapathy,
Sujata (2009): Psychosocial Care in
Disaster Management: A Training of Trainers Module; National Institute of
Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affair, GOI, New Delhi
8.
WHO
(1992): Psychosocial Consequences of
Disabilities: Prevention and Management”. WHO/MNH, PSF/91.3, Rev. 1
INTERNET
1.
David
Baldwin’s Trauma Pages, http://www.trauma-pages.com
2. Disaster
Management, http://www.en.wikepedia/disastermanagement
3. Disaster
Mental Health Institute, http://www.ncptsd.org
4. International
Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). http://www.istss.org
5. National
Centre for PTSD, http://www.dartmouth.ed/dms/ptsd
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