Psychology Faculty Assess the Needs of Families Post-Katrina

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The storm and its aftermath resulted in the most severe, damaging and costly natural disaster in the nation’s history — as evidenced by the size of the region affected, the loss of life, the extensive destruction of property and the thousands displaced.

Just like the rest of the country, UNC Charlotte psychology professors Ryan Kilmer and Virginia Gil-Rivas were struck by the magnitude of damage and loss, and they wanted to do something to help. Considering their professional backgrounds — Kilmer, a child clinical-community psychologist; and Gil-Rivas, a developmental health psychologist who studies how people adapt in the aftermath of major life events — it was an easy decision for them to team up on a research project looking at the psychological effects of the disaster on children and their families from the Gulf Coast.

What wasn’t as easy was securing the grant funding to hold the studies in the ideal timeframe, which, according to Gil-Rivas, is considered to be within the first three to six months after a disaster hits. After a delayed start, the pair received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and worked with a colleague from Louisiana State University to make connections in the area around Baton Rouge, La. and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to recruit participants.

Although delays meant a change in approach, Kilmer and Gil-Rivas agree that the delay actually made for more interesting, and even more important, findings.

“While most post-disaster studies focus on the mental health of victims soon after the event, by necessity our study involved participants at approximately one year and two years afterward,” says Gil-Rivas. “And what we found were families living in conditions, under stress, that would have seemed more appropriate for three to six months out.”

“One place we visited was a formerly middle-class neighborhood of nice single-family brick homes,” says Kilmer. “A year after the hurricane, we saw families still living in tents on their property, bathing their children with hoses in kiddie pools. It was shocking.”

Kilmer and Gil-Rivas could only assume that if the very basic day-to-day needs of so many families in the area weren’t being met, that other needs, related to education, mental health and other social services for the displaced families, were also going unmet.

“People were still living in transitional housing, having difficulty meeting daily needs, and there was a lot of anger,” recalls Gil-Rivas. “We had not originally put a measure for anger in our study, and so starting our research late actually changed the way we approached it. It was nearly a year later and people felt like it just happened.”

Kilmer, Gil-Rivas, and their colleagues conducted face-to-face interviews in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Mississippi with nearly 70 children, aged 7-10 years, and their primary caregivers. They followed up with around 50 of the same families about two years post-Katrina with the same questions. Of the families interviewed, over 95 percent of them had to evacuate their communities and 90 percent of them became homeless. In the year following the hurricane, the families moved an average of three times.

The researchers asked caregivers and children about their experiences during and after Katrina; their needs following the disaster; their social relationships, including the caregiver-child relationship; child characteristics, strengths, and problems; and caregiver functioning.

For instance, caregivers were assessed for symptoms of depression and anxiety and for parenting-related strain. They were also asked questions regarding the number and extent of services they had received (such as housing, employment assistance, counseling) and if or how frequently they encouraged their child to cope positively with the disaster.

Children responded to a number of questions related to their psychological well-being — looking, for example, at symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder; at signs of their “post-traumatic growth,” or their perception of positive changes in themselves; and at other issues related to their ability to cope and their perception of their caregivers’ mood in the wake of the hurricane.

“One thing we learned was that communities and charitable organizations were supportive for the first six months after Katrina, but soon after many withdrew that support,” says Gil-Rivas. “Our data suggest that the need for support lasts much longer than that, which was evidenced by responses from our study participants during our second year interviews.”

More families reported requiring material needs following the hurricane than any other area assessed, with 90 percent of those surveyed reporting a need for help with housing and 89 percent expressing a need for financial assistance. In terms of child service needs, the researchers discovered that the greatest need was for tutoring in school subjects in which children may have fallen behind.

Kilmer’s and Gil-Rivas’ research found that roughly one-fifth of the children and more than one-third of the caregivers interviewed showed some signs of post-traumatic stress one year after the hurricane. Those findings, they say, suggest that families may benefit from psychological services or support even months after traumatic events. Their research also pointed to the parents’ important role in their children’s adjustment post-Katrina.

“You can’t target just children,” says Kilmer. “Our research shows the importance of attending to what we call children’s ecologies, or their contexts, in post-disaster situations. We need to assess their relationships with parents and other adults, as well as other potential influences in their environments. For example, the well-being of the caregiver is an important factor in children’s recovery following disaster. We have to look at what the direct and indirect influences are on these kids.”

One person the researchers met who was trying to address these multiple issues affecting the children, was Jacqueline MacDonald, the principal of Mayfair Elementary, a school reopened to accommodate the influx of families displaced by Hurricane Katrina in East Baton Rouge Parish, La. They were immediately impressed with McDonald’s approach to running the school as more than just a center for education but as a “comprehensive resource, a go-to place for the whole community,” Kilmer says.

MacDonald says she “developed a community within our school. . . . We were a small school who set out to make everyday a day where students and staff live, laugh and learn.”

Kilmer and Gil-Rivas said that the school provided an important source of comfort and routine to the students — many of whom were testing below grade level when they started and had achieved grade level or better by the end of the year — and a community resource for displaced families who no longer had their key social networks from before the hurricane.

MacDonald’s holistic approach to her school should serve as a model for communities recovering from disasters in the future, according to Kilmer and Gil-Rivas. Mayfair Elementary was a grand success by many measures, a bright spot in an area that had otherwise seen little rehabilitation. It was closed after operating for only year, but during that year it offered a few Gulf Coast children and their families a ray of sunshine after the storm.

In addition to numerous articles and presentations, Kilmer’s and Gil-Rivas’ work also led to the online feature article, “Responding to the Needs of Children and Families Following Disaster,” on the American Psychological Association’s Research in Action website: http://www.apa.org/research/action/disaster.aspx