Resources to help children cope with trauma

This post is aimed at helping children to cope with trauma, but providing resources and strategies to support them, their families and educators.

Last Friday, Christchurch suffered an horrific terrorist attack. A gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch and started shooting people with a semi-automatic weapon. This has been a very traumatic and sad weekend in Christchurch. Our sincerest condolences and love go out to the families who lost loved ones in the shootings on Friday, 15th March.

As a result, we have cancelled all PLD in Christchurch this week so schools can focus on the hauora (well-being) for students and staff. The range and scope of effects in schools with this sort of event is quite unpredictable as every school/family will have different experiences based on a variety of factors, including how close they are to those directly affected… For many it will bring up memories of the earthquakes, particularly kids aged around 11-12 as they will have the memory/cognitive capacity to recall those times with clarity.

It was just like the earthquakes

The sound of helicopters over the houses certainly reminds me of those times. I was in Queenstown when it happened and I ‘fell’ into the social media livestream, not realising what it really was until I’d viewed much of the video that was streamed live; this was such a shocking thing to view when it dawned on me this was real. It was truly like watching a nightmare and I just hope not many young people saw it. Thankfully, school-aged students probably didn’t have their phones going during class time. What a destructive example of digital usage.

One of the top challenges the world faces according to António Guterres, the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, is better digital governance. Indeed many talk about ethics becoming one of the most important professions as exponential technologies create change that we can’t seem to keep up with.

Let’s encourage the social media giants to become more ethical

Helen Clark, a former NZ Prime Minister, tweeted on the weekend about “why can’t/won’t the social media giants automatically remove racist and other vile content from their sites?” I agree, why can’t they spend some of their immense resources on ethical social media usage, rather than just making more money via advertising? This is also mirrored by The Verge here. We have the technology, yet the implementation of our ethics are clearly not as sophisticated. Where does freedom of speech stop? Should it stop when others can be harmed? Come on Google, Facebook, Twitter – you have a chance to ‘do no evil’!

It is NOT OKAY for hate in any shape or form to grow in New Zealand. We need to ensure we work harder to be inclusive, caring and kinder towards all. We are all part of the same human family.

I virtually attended the UNA NZ national council meeting on the weekend which took place in Wellington. This highlights the importance of the United Nations mission to promote peace and security and uphold human rights. Now, more than ever, it is of paramount importance to perpetuate peace, unity and compassion for others no matter their beliefs/culture/etc.

To this end, we have curated some resources for our colleagues in schools to use at this time and will continue to add to this list as new strategies and resources come to light. If you come across others, please let us know.

Finally, to our colleagues in schools: if we can support you in any way at this challenging time then please ask.

Resources and activities to help children cope with trauma