Whether affected by tornadoes, the Mississippi floods or the earthquakes in Spain: Feelings, emotions, and behaviors are going to be the same

Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz

There are at least five causes for the behaviors and feelings of disaster-affected people: (1) anxieties over having lost everything;  (2) being a refugee in your own community; (3) daily routine has been disturbed; (4) the degree of vulnerability increases; and, (5) a feeling of uncertainty toward the future.

No matter what role or what disaster you have been assigned to work, there are actions that you needs to take to assure the well being and increase hope in the survivors:

• ·      Engage disaster-affected people in their own recovery.
• ·      Provide accurate and timely information.
• ·      Make sure that children and adolescent have a private space.
• ·      Assist community members to plan for actions that will bring a routine and normalcy back.
• ·      Foster voluntarism.
• ·      Provide spaces for community members to plan, manage, and monitor their own recovery.

Surely you will do a fine job by using psychosocial support activities suggested above, will assist the disaster-affected people to re-direct their behaviors and feelings toward reconstruction and an enhanced resilience.