Acceptability of Preventive Mental Health: Helping Children Cope with Displacement.

1. Acceptability of Preventive Mental Health: Helping Children Cope with Displacement. Sharone L. Maital, Ph.D Director, Megiddo School Psychology Services, Senior School Psychology Director, Northern District & University of Haifa maitals@construct.haifa.ac.il

2. The case of the Katif Settlersin Israel • 21 Communities were uprooted from their homes in the summer of 2005. I.e. they were given the (non) choice to relocate from their homes voluntarily or to be moved forcibly. • Families generally lived in comfortable homes and highly compatible, mostly small cohesive and idealistic communities. • The disengagement decision aroused considerable political disagreement.

3. Sources of stress among displaced families • Relocation, or moving to a new home involves Loss of Place Attachments.

4. Sources of stress (cont’d) • Any change can arouse a degree of stress Stress increases especially if it is: • Unexpected, Sudden, or Unplanned • Compulsory or against one’s will or preference • Involves loss in multiple domains • Being displaced involves relocation under these highly stressful conditions

5. The School Psychologists’ Dilemma What do we do when we know there is an impending stressful situation and we truly want to help, yet our offers of help just increase the salience of the impending event and arouse resistance among those who most need our support?

6. Questions for Planning and Implementing Interventions • Who should be the helpers? • On Whom should we focus our help? • When should we intervene? • Where should intervention efforts be conducted? • What should we do? What interventions will be effective? • How do we “join” children and families from displaced communities?

7. Preparations & Plansof theIsrael School Psychology Administration • A special unit within the National School Psychology & Counseling Services was set up to deal with the planned displacement.

8. Working Guidelines of the Unit: • Need to prepare both staff and students before the disengagement. • An emphasis on emotional responses • BASIC- PH • Principle of Proximity, Immediacy, & Future Expectations (for continuity)vs • Principle of Distancing, Delay, Closure

9. Difficulties Encountered • Unwillingness of settlers to speak directly about the upcoming relocation. • Emotional preparation perceived as weakening defenses. • Endorsement of intervention plans by religious & community leaders. • Balance involvement and empathy with maintenance of a “professional perspective”.

10. Difficulties Encountered cont’d • Competing commitments & emotional involvement of professionals • Attempts to apply paradigms for intervention without sufficient consideration of the culture of the communities.

11. Working Guidelines (revised) • Need for helpers from the same religious and cultural orientation • Strength based Empowerment of existing community leaders • Interdisciplinary Teamwork

12. Lessons LearnedKey Issues for helping Displaced Children and Families • The importance of recognizing the depth of identity crises following displacement. Displacement involves disruption to: • Place attachments – a mutual caretaking bond between a person and a beloved place. • Familiarity – development of detailed cognitive knowledge of our environs. • Place identity – a sense of self based on places in which we live.

14. Continuity – Taking identity symbols and precious community symbols

15. Key Issues cont’d • Need to reconcile Multiple & Conflicting identities (Ben-Asher, in press) • Religious Jewish Identity • Israeli Identity (with the State) • Settler Identity • Community Identity • Family Identity • Different Social Representations for each stage • In public and media presence • With professionals from their own group • At home in their families and community • In school

16. Key Issues cont’d • Resources Lost Relative To Gains (Hobfall, 1989; 1991) • Different Cultural Patterns: Communal- mastery versus self mastery under stress (Hobfoll, Jackson, Hobfoll & Young, 2002)