Page 176 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Collaboration in Working With Children Affected by Disaster 145

The number of families participating dwindled each year. At the third
retreat, we asked them to take over the task of organizing the next one. They
did not, and the project ended. In hindsight, the provision of such support
by many professionals collaborating together to help these families served
a valuable purpose during the first years after the 9/11 attacks. As the par-
ents put their lives back together, their need for us diminished. In turn, we
became less inclined to provide collaborative support without being asked.

Conclusion

Reviewing this experience, it is apparent that prior contact with schools or
corporations creates trust and familiarity and allows access and involve-
ment after a disaster that is much harder to achieve with no prior contact.
Regarding preventive intervention, creating and maintaining contacts for
ongoing consultation with community institutions, such as schools or
companies, is invaluable in the event of a disaster. Similar value can be
found in the cultivation of relationships between groups of mental health
professionals on the one hand and churches and synagogues on the other
to open doors and keep them open during the time after a disaster.
During interventions, there are advantages to having several adults
lead group discussions. For us, when one facilitator could not find a way
to interrupt an unfortunate direction in the conversation, another was
able tactfully to lead the conversation elsewhere. This is an important
point in understanding how people may effectively work together in a
chaotic environment, by the implicit or stated agreement to share leader-
ship roles and tasks.
Internal collaboration and open communication is essential to interact
effectively with external groups like schools or corporations, even as this
internal collaboration develops in conjunction with needs presented by
these groups. Projects can fail if the collaborative team is in conflict about
matters such as budget, roles, and authority to make decisions.
Collaborative projects on behalf of children after a disaster need some-
one to organize the effort, whether a professional or a parent. There also
comes a time for the project to end. After our collaborative project with
the company so damaged on 9/11 finally came to an end, parents contin-
ued to receive support through ongoing community, company, or church
involvements and through support groups and church-based activities
that had preceded our own intervention but were enriched by the experi-
ences we had offered.