supporting children's need after a disaster

Action Plans for Early Childhood Educator To Help Support Their Students Needs

Every educator whether early childhood, elementary or secondary, needs the background knowledge on how to support the needs and emotions of every child who may walk into their lives. In this paper I am going to explore five possible scenarios that educators will confront sometime in their professional career, supporting the child's needs after a disaster, loss of a family member, maltreatment, divorce, and being an advocate for a family in your community. With each of the five action plan scenarios I will provide background information, and ideas and advice on how to support the child's needs.

Action Plan 1

Supporting A Child's Needs Following a Disaster

For my first action plan for early childhood educators to support a child's need and emotions in the case of some emotional distress, first I am going to look at the effects of a natural disaster. Many regions around the world are affected by weather related and natural disasters like hurricanes, tornado, typhoons, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Just this past year the mid west was hit with tornadoes that left many families with out a home, the loss of lives, and the stress of rebuilding even though it could happen again. For the gulf region of the united states, these type of weather related disasters happen often around the late summer and early fall months, during hurricane season. We all are trained on what to do in the case of a disaster, but how do we support the families and children in our care in the aftermath? What should educators know about the needs and emotions of the children, what do the experts say we should do to help support the children, and what problems could the children face in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Scenario:

You are an early childhood educator working with young children in the gulf region who are still struggling with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. What essential information will you need to know in order to help support the children who are still struggling with the aftermath? What useful information can experts give you to help the families and children? What problems related to the aftermath of Katrina could effect the children's family life, routines, and sense of security? How can you help support the needs and emotions of the children in your care?

After a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, educators must know that many of the children in their care have been hit by this type of disaster in many different ways, loss of childhood home and belongings, parents loss of job security, malnutrition and basic needs not met, loss of family member, friend, and pets, seen violence, illnesses, and death, and may have been separated from family members. The affect from these traumatic experiences cause children to ask many difficult questions, show signs of depression, anxiety, and behavioral challenges. The outcome of many of the situations mentioned above could affect the child's daily life and sense of security, by starting a new school, and family life changes. With the children's emotions being a wreck, starting a new school could cause more stress for the child. Start at a new school, not knowing if you will be liked, if your old friends will be there can be stressful for a child who is already dealing with so much. Another problem that can affect a child's daily life after a traumatic experience, is the separation of the family unit. Do to the stresses of rebuilding, financially supporting the family, and living in closes quarters for a long period of time can have an affect on the family. Many adults struggle with keep a family together while trying to overcome this type of disaster that effects many different parts of our lives. What we as educators need to do is understand what the families are going through, and help as much as possible to keep the child's life as normal as possible.

The experts on the affects of disasters of children suggest that as educators, we must support the basic emotional and physical needs of the children affected, keep their daily routines the same as before the disaster, limit the amount of information that they may receive about the disaster, listen carefully to the children and reassure them, look for changes in them and yourself, be a role model on how to cope with the aftermath. The points that the experts tell us that we should do in the aftermath of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, should be used on a daily basis. As educators we should be a role model, looking for behavioral changes, meeting the physical and emotional needs of every child in our care, if we do these things on a daily basis the children would not hopefully notice any change in their routines while in our care.

 As an educator of 15 plus years, I can say that I have only had a few incidents where I had to emotional and physically support the children in my care due to some traumatic experience, but nothing like the experiences that the children of the gulf coasts states have had to deal with in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. What I have come to learn is that I need to be a role model, and keep their daily routines the same no matter how difficult it may be. I need to be a good listener, and observer. I also need to be their friend and someone they can trust in this difficult time of their lives. Like I said it maybe difficult at times but i know that I have to be the rock, be the only constant, non-changing thing in that child's life.