Hurricane Katrina Information for Mississippi Hospitals

Children use Chicago-based program to deal with hurricane trauma

Penny Torgeson, who teaches a child psychology course at William Carey College on the Gulf Coast, has brought the Silver Linings Community Crisis Response Program, created after 9/11, to help children on the Mississippi Gulf Coast deal with their feelings after Hurricane Katrina.

Starting the program was difficult. With 10 feet of water in the school from Katrina, it was months before students could return to the campus. Finally, Torgeson was able to start the Silver Linings program with a test group of second graders.

"It helps the children go through the stages. It is about what happened, the change and how to get past what happened and to recover," she said.

Activities include a feelings toss, where children toss a ball or sack onto a box stating a certain feeling. The child then discusses a time they felt that emotion. The activities are designed to teach children that feelings are universal.

"It is OK to be angry or to be sad. Feelings aren't good or bad. They just are what they are," Torgeson said.

The Gulfview second graders, who are expected to wrap up the six stage lesson plan early this year, have found they share the same fears. Some have said they are afraid to sleep at night, while others say they are "scared of everything now," she said.

"I can give them little hints or tips of how to calm yourself back down," Torgeson said.

Stephanie Gatlin, coordinator of Silver Linings at the Mobile Mental Health Center in Alabama, has used the program to help children directly affected and displaced from the Katrina as well.

Though crisis response was available through FEMA, the Child Advocacy Center determined a need for children to receive long term trauma based care counseling in their schools, Gatlin said.

Since October, the Mobile Mental Health Center and the Child Advocacy Center have partnered to offer the program to students in five schools in Grand Bay and Bayou La Batre and Irvington.

"The students were just so ready to talk and process things," Gatlin said, adding that she believe their school performances have also improved.

After the first groups complete the program, Gatlin said the students will be evaluated to see if more intensive grief and loss therapy is needed.

The coping skills taught by the program help prepare children for other life-changing events.

"It helps the children feel safe. They are able to make order out of the chaos that they are living in," said Suzy Yehl Marta, founder and president of Rainbows.

Silver Linings was launched in 1992 and was tailored after 9/11 to deal with the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Marta said the program has been praised by educators and children. Teachers have found it easy to implement and children are given a place to talk, she said.

"One little boy said he loves it _ 'I no longer cry every 3 minutes,'" Marta said.

Often it is said that kids are resilient but Marta disagrees, citing children in New York City who now suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome.

Patricia Skalka, a spokeswoman for Rainbows, said the Silver Linings packet has been made free to Katrina victims, thanks in part to grants from The Allianz Group and local schools and individuals in the Chicago area. The packet is normally available for a fee, said Laurie Olbrisch, the organization's executive vice president.

Three editions are available, each focusing on a different age group.

[ via katc.com ]

Report highlights public health efforts in Louisiana after hurricanes

A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes public health activities in Louisiana the first two months after Hurricane Katrina, when local authorities reopened portions of New Orleans and some residents began to return. Efforts included disease surveillance in evacuation centers to detect potential outbreaks and measure the burden of selected chronic conditions on the health care system; daily surveillance to monitor for trends and aberrations in illness and injuries at acute-care facilities; and efforts to assess the health-related needs of returning residents.

The activities are detailed in the Jan. 20th edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The CDC plans to release a second report in March on the broader impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including public health activities in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Florida.

[ via AHA News ]

HHS leading EHR effort on Gulf Coast

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with the Southern Governors' Association and the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services (LHSS) to plan and promote the use of electronic health records on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.

As hospitals and health centers rebuild, the partnership will help create, disseminate, and support new records that will eventually connect with each other for an interoperable health information exchange, reports HHS.

The agreement with the governors' association will unite local and national resources and coordinate planning for digital health information programs. It will also develop and provide support for a prototype for sharing health information. HHS recently awarded four contracts to teams to develop prototypes for a national health information technology architecture.

Source: Medical Records Briefing

Harvard survey asks: What did Katrina do to you?

A national survey of Hurricane Katrina survivors, funded by a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, will begin Jan. 10. Researchers from Harvard Medical School start contacting 2,000 people affected by Hurricane Katrina to ask them about what problems they're still facing.

A team of 100 researchers will contact 1,000 people from the New Orleans area and another 1,000 from elsewhere along the Coast.

Questions will include what's going right for them, what's going wrong, what mental health problems they've been facing, and what they would like too see the government and other organizations do about it. The survivors will be contacted every three months over the next two years to monitor their progress.The surveyors will follow each session with reports to policy makers and to the public.

The group will also dial 250,000 phone numbers from around the country randomly to find survivors who have spread out. They'll use data from the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to find people who stayed in shelters or hotels for a time.

Results from all sessions will be posted on the Web site. The first results are expected at the end of February. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has estimated as many as 25 percent to 30 percent of Katrina's survivors could have clinically significant mental health needs.