Less Fearful, More Active: Classroom Based Intervention

Arkadaşlar (friends) at Zafer Primary School, İzmit.
Photograph by Rana Mullan © UNICEF Turkey 2001

Activities For Children And Parents

While the initial Teachers’ Debriefing phase was in progress, the second, more complex, phase was planned in three parallel components which aimed to reach the children through a comprehensive range of services. The primary component, referred to as the Classroom Based Intervention (CBI), was designed to reach children directly in the classroom. The second component, Group Counselling (GC) complemented the first and was designed to provide further in-depth support to the more seriously affected children identified during the CBI sessions. The third component, known as Psycho-education (PE) encompassed teachers and parents as well the children themselves, providing basic training about the normal reactions for those who have lived through an abnormal event.

Classroom Based Intervention

Conceived and developed at the Boston Trauma Centre specifically for the children who survived the Turkish earthquakes, Classroom Based Intervention (CBI) was implemented through school counsellors trained in CBI techniques by a team of trauma psychologists from Boston. Two three-day training sessions were held between the 6th and 11th of March for school counsellors where a total of three hundred and twenty attended.

We were sleeping when the earthquake struck and as soon as we felt the tremors we ran from the house. My father went to help the neighbours and I went with him. As I watched him trying to help a man from under the rubble, I thought I heard a deep voice crying for help from under some rubble nearby.

I was shocked and stunned. I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t able to tell the others that I had heard a voice beneath the rubble. After that, I couldn’t get over the feeling of guilt. I kept thinking that I might have saved that man. But, through CBI, I have been able to understand that my reaction was normal and finally to overcome this feeling of guilt.

G (boy) 7th grade, Orhangazi Primary School, Sakarya

The primary objectives of the CBI were to stabilise traumatic stress responses, to facilitate normal school activities, to engage the children in creative activities which would enlighten their perception of traumatic experiences (thereby helping them to cope more efficiently) and to show them that such experiences can be safely studied, expressed and understood by trusted care-taking adults within the classroom context.

At Kaynaşlı Primary School, in Düzce, a school counsellor was taking the class for What have I lost and what has changed? One girl had drawn a female figure which she said was her mother who had lost her life during the earthquake. She said she wanted to share her picture. Then she began to cry. Soon the rest of the children were in tears.

The counsellor managed to collect herself and said I believe your mother is an angel now, above us, and that she is watching down on you.

This calmed the girl somewhat but the tears continued to flow. She said that she hadn’t even been able to say ‘goodbye’ to her mother. At this point, the counsellor asked her if she would like to say ‘goodbye’ now. The girl nodded ‘yes’ and the counsellor asked her whether or not she would like to do so with her friends. Again, the girl nodded ‘yes’. The counsellor invited the whole class to close their eyes and to imagine the girl’s mother.

Altogether they said ‘goodbye’ to her. During the course of the next class, the counsellor noticed that the same girl was drawing a bicycle and she asked her about it. The girl said it was her bicycle which she had lost during the earthquake -- a healthy sign that she had completed the process of grieving for her mother and had begun to grieve for the other things she had lost.

From the first CBI implementation, Spring 2000

Where MONE had been cautious to make changes to the national curriculum in the past, many alterations and adjustments were made, often in the space of a day, in order to facilitate urgent need for the intervention. The training manual and intervention methods were refined during the Winter recess to suit the Turkish context and, afterwards, at a meeting in Ankara, MONE and UNICEF finalised arrangements with NET and established the future course of the programme.

Sports activities at at Zafer Primary School, İzmit.
Photograph by Rana Mullan © UNICEF Turkey 2001

The Structure Of The CBI Sessions

The programme was structured so that the children were guided step by step through each session by a routine of three stages: opening circle, central activities and games and the closing circle. An important feature of the sessions was the single voice principle whereby no one, child or counsellor, could be interrupted when speaking. Neither was laughter or any other distracting behaviour permitted to interfere when a participant spoke. Through this simple discipline, the children would learn self-control, self-confidence and self-assertion, to externalise their feelings and develop mutual respect for one another within the group.With the resumption of school activities, it became rapidly apparent that parents and teachers had become over-indulgent towards the children, perhaps compensating for the disturbance of the earthquakes. To start with, there was chaos in the classrooms. School counsellors had to learn to communicate with their charges more effectively. One counsellor, working with the 7th and 8th grades noted that his pupils had great difficulty obeying the rules:

I could not make myself heard. However, in the CBI we kept reminding them of the rules. We never raised our voices and simply held our patience. Eventually the children settled down. They became less aggressive. Where they used to get together in cliques and make fun of the activities, with time, they learned to trust and now they generally participate without making fun.

Breaktime at the 8th Boru Primary School, Kocaeli.
Photograph by Rana Mullan © UNICEF Turkey 2001

Evaluating Classroom Based Intervention

Before and after the intervention, a survey of symptom measures was collected from six hundred and forty-four students above the age of twelve and seven hundred and eighty-nine parents of children below that age. Comparisons were made between students participating in the CBI and those of a similar age in a Wait-List Comparison Group (WL). It was generally understood by all parties concerned that students in both groups identified as being at risk should be referred for treatment immediately. Although the authorities were asked not to introduce systematic or formal psycho-social interventions in any of the WL schools, it was impossible to control interventions delivered by teachers of their own accord or delivered outside of school.

There was the very interesting case of a boy in primary school at Adapazarı who had been withdrawn and generally reluctant to take play with his classmates even before the earthquake. When CBI sessions began at his school, his attitude was not surprisingly to remain disinterested, unwilling to join in the group activities, despite efforts to engage him with the others.

The counsellor was advised to leave him be and allow him the space to become more relaxed about what was happening. After two sessions, the counsellor and also -- it should be said -- his classmates were pleasantly surprised to observe him joining hands with others in the circle.

From that day, he has ceased to be withdrawn and continues to take part in all classroom activities. It would appear that, in this little boy’s case, the CBI reached further beyond the effects of the earthquake to mitigate a more deep-rooted problem.

From the first CBI implementation, Autumn 2000

Activities commenced in the first week of April with the collection of pre-intervention symptom measures. The programme utilised many proven methods of processing the often fragmented memories and physical fears surrounding a traumatic event. Sessions were spread over a period of six weeks and utilised movement, silent story telling, music therapy, art therapy and highly structured confidence building games to encourage the children to express their fears. The objective was to rebuild their self-esteem and trust in the environment. Each week would feature a specific theme such as: information; safety and stabilisation; awareness; control and self-esteem; thoughts and reactions during and after the earthquake; resource identification; coping skills; resource installation and future planning. A number of props such as beach balls, fabric dyes, frisbees, paints and an innovative particoloured parachute were used to enhance activities, often to musical accompaniment.

The fully illustrated text of Less Fearful, More Active is also available for download in print-ready pdf format. [PDF 1.25MB]

Previous page |

* How to use RSS …