Mending Broken Lives

Mercy Corps youth program officer Audrey Anderson, left, consults with Dr. Janet Johnson, a psychiatry professor who has evaluated and employed the agency's What Happened to My World? curriculum. Photo: Rhonda Barton for Mercy Corps

New Orleans, Louisiana — Rebuilding the ravaged Gulf Coast isn't simply a matter of bricks and mortar, plywood and stucco. Like the splintered houses and barren landscape, the emotional well-being of the area's residents was ripped apart by last fall's storms and must be carefully repaired.

With the 2006 hurricane season already here, the need to heal the psychic scars in one of the region's most vulnerable populations, the children of greater New Orleans and coastal Mississippi, has never been greater. Partnering with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Mercy Corps has invested $600,000 to restore a collapsed system of youth support services. One element of the initiative, Comfort for Kids, reaches out to educators, social workers, and health professionals, giving them the tools they need to minister to traumatized youngsters.

Reckoning With Loss

In a brightly lit classroom of a turn-of-the-century settlement house, now a New Orleans community center, trainer Olayeela Daste welcomes about two dozen youth workers, some of the 2,000 whom Mercy Corps hopes to reach — and, through them, thousands more children.

In attendance today include nurses, teachers, mental health counselors, and day care directors. All were touched by Katrina. Two still live in cramped FEMA trailers. Daste, a single mother of six, discloses matter-of-factly that she also lost her home to the waters that flooded 148 square miles here.

Daste passes out small sheets of brown paper and asks the participants to take a moment to write down their own emotions since Katrina. The words, posted on the front wall, spill out like a dark river of despair touched with a few rays of light. Tired, frustrated, strong, scared, brave, hot, displaced, sad, guilty, pissed, dedicated, hopeful, overwhelmed, blessed, read the signs.

"I can understand blessed," Daste says. "I sleep on a friend's sofa, but I met someone who lives in a car."

It's clear that to help heal the city's children, these caregivers must first come to terms with their own grief. Strategies fly around the room. "I practice my faith," says one member of the group. Others suggest going for walks, reading, getting plenty of sleep and healthy food, finding normalcy in routine, and connecting to scattered relatives by cell phone or the Internet. "Many things we do for ourselves also work for children," Daste notes.

Preparing for the Worst

With the 2006 hurricane season here, and the experiences of the previous one still burned in memory, many children in the Gulf region are exhibiting troubling behaviors.

"We've seen a lot of aggression. Even children who have outgrown biting are starting to bite again," says Sharon Gancarz-Davies, a social worker who deals with babies and toddlers, as well as their older siblings. She says that some of her young cases also cry more and are harder to comfort now.

Daste asks the participants to reflect on how to recreate for children the "pillars of security" — people, routine, ritual, and place. The exchange of ideas offers new approaches as well as an affirmation of steps that the youth workers are already taking.

For example, a toy-lending library can help replace playthings lost in the storm; art therapy is a powerful tool for children to deal with feelings that can't be verbalized; and establishing a predictable routine of storytimes and other activities goes a long way toward restoring a sense of order. For younger children, playing with construction toys can provide a sense of rebuilding their environment. Older children can feel empowered by writing letters to lawmakers, creating a Web site to share community information, or gathering donated supplies for hurricane preparedness kits.

Trainer Olayeela Daste, far left, demonstrates some musical instruments that caregivers can use to promote healing in children. Photo: Rhonda Barton for Mercy Corps

Building on Resiliency

For children of all ages, hurricane workbooks provide a powerful tool for processing traumatic experiences and moving on. Mercy Corps is providing thousands of copies of two publications, My Hurricane Story and My Katrina and Rita Workbook, to schools and health care workers in Louisiana and Mississippi. Together with a curriculum titled What Happened to My World, the resources guide children and adults in the healing process.

Dr. Janet Johnson, a Tulane University associate professor of psychiatry and an evaluator for the Mercy Corps program, walks the group through the workbooks, which she used successfully with hurricane evacuees in Houston.

"It was the most amazing thing," she informs the gathering. "They had such a quieting effect on the kids. It was very poignant to see what was in their workbooks, and the art was heartbreaking, but it calmed them down."

Johnson believes the materials and trainings like this one are an invaluable part of restoring psychological well-being, and that most young people in New Orleans will be able to heal without needing mental health interventions.

"Children are resilient in general," Johnson says, "and most people get through disasters using existing resources and their own coping mechanisms. The problem with this disaster though is that the normal network of support systems — churches, neighborhoods, schools — was wiped out. You weren't left with much to turn to. But, New Orleans is resilient. People are back and they're determined to maintain their culture. I've been very heartened by that."

Taking Away Lessons

As the session draws to a close, Daste gives out a constellation of construction paper stars that proclaim, "What I know now is…".

One by one, the men and women in the room fill in the blank. A child psychologist offers, "I can easily say that regardless of the everyday annoyances of life today in New Orleans, I am so astounded that people here can get up in the morning, come to trainings like this one, and be committed to helping others." A daycare teacher says she knows there's still a community and things will get better as time goes on. Another educator simply states, "The children of New Orleans are all heroes."

One final epiphany lingers over the group as everyone gets ready to return to their jobs and to life in a city bracing for a new hurricane season. "What I know now," one star reads, "is that nothing is ever certain, and that's okay."

View our Hurricane Katrina publications to find out more about the materials referenced in this article.