Coping with Emergencies

Disasters can have profound and long-lasting effects on the victims, whether individuals, families or communities. Disasters frequently cause feelings of fear, confusion, grief, helplessness, anxiety, anger, guilt and even affect our sense of confidence in ourselves or in others. There are various beneficial intervention methods that can help traumatized individuals recover.

When coming in contact with people who have been traumatized by a disaster, psychological first aid may relieve painful feelings and help minimize additional damages resulting from the initial reactions to the disaster. By communicating with people, we can provide psychological first aid to people in distress, by creating an environment with:

1. Safety
2. Calm
3. Connection with others
4. A sense of self-competence (or empowerment)
5. Hope

You may want to consider the suggestions below.

What we should do

• Safety: help people meet their basic needs such as food, shelter and medical treatment during emergency situations. We should provide them with simple and precise information on how to get these things.
• Calm: listen to people who wish to share their stories and their feelings with us. There is no right or wrong way to feel about something
• Calm: be friendly and treat people with compassion even when they are difficult to deal with and be around
• Calm: provide people with precise information about the disaster and the relief efforts, so people have better understanding of their situation
• Connection: help other people connect with their families, friends and loved ones
• Connection: make sure that families stay together. Ensure that children are with their parents or with other relatives as much as possible
• Self-competence: provide people with practical advice that will encourage them to help themselves and to take care of their own needs
• Hope: refer people to places where they can receive services from available government and non-government resources
• Hope: If we know that additional help sources and services are headed our way, we should remind this to people when they are feeling scared or concerned

What we should not do

• Do not force people to share their stories, especially if they involve very personal information (it may undermine their sense of calm)
• Do not say simple encouraging sentences like "everything will be alright" or "at least you're alive" (this usually undermines their sense of calm)
• Do not tell other people what we think they should feel, think or do now, or how we think that they should have done sooner (it undermines their sense of self-competence)
• Do not tell other people why we think that they suffered, giving explanations that relate to their behaviors and beliefs (it also undermines their sense of self-competence)
• Do not make any promises that we cannot keep (it undermines their sense of hope)
• Do not criticize available services or relief actions in the presence of the people who need these services (it undermines both their sense of hope and their sense of calm)

I am fine. What can I do to help others?

• You should make it a habit to regularly and frequently ask friends and neighbors how they are doing, especially those who may require assistance
• You can donate food, money or time
• You should find ways to help others help themselves
• You should get to know the people who live around us, within the framework of our common rebuilding efforts