When disaster strikes - the need to be "wise before the event" : crisis intervention with children and adolescents / William Yule.

Reprinted from Advanced in Min-Body Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 191-196.

Addresses issues in providing crisis intervention to children and adolescents affected by a traumatic event or disaster. These include the need for risk analysis and preparation, cross-agency disaster plans, coordinated efforts to provide evidence-based intervention packages for local implementation with a modicum of training and supervision, and psychological debriefing for children. Although few studies have evaluated the effects of debriefing on children, the author makes several recommendations for how to respond to children traumatized by an emergency event. The key to improvements in crisis interventions is seen to be forward planning and better outcome measurement studies.