BETWEEN PLANNING AND WARNING

Alberto Z. Laborte Jr., MSDRM

Mambulo, Nuevo National High School
Mambulo Nuevo, Libmanan Camarines Sur

The effects of disasters on people are weighty. Children in particular find themselves
that going away of their usual surroundings—like home, school, and peers is being extremely
upsetting. When their daily routines are unswerving and predictable, children feel protected
and at ease. Disasters tear down regular daily routines, which destabilize this sense of
wellbeing. Additionally, caregivers are frequently unable to provide the same level of care and
comfort as they did prior to the episode of a calamity. Children may experience anxiety, fear,
and a sense of insecurity as a result of this.
Children's reactions are different from adults because their emotional, cognitive,
behavioral, and sensory skills are still developing. When exposed to a single traumatic event,
children frequently recover and do not show any signs of psychopathological disorder. If a
child's responses to trauma are ignited at this developmental stage, they feel too
uncomfortable to try new things to cope up with it. Their anxieties and phobias show up in a
spectrum of behaviors that often change with maturity and development. Despite having a
large network of supporters, children typically lack the life experiences and coping mechanisms
that would enable them to adapt to the enormous changes in their lives that a tragedy brings
about. Children are therefore not only physically vulnerable and at risk due to a particular
disaster, but they are also psychologically vulnerable and at peril of having their normal
psychosocial status deteriorate as a result of the disaster. By implementing a all-inclusive and
efficient disaster management plan, this may very well be diminished.
Disaster preparedness is a program of long-term developmental activities whose goals are to
improve the nation's overall capacity and capability to manage effectively all types of
emergencies and to facilitate a smooth transition from relief to recovery towards sustained
development.
In order to reduce menace and the unexpected hazards, increase the sensation of mastery in
coping up and draw up optimism, and minimize the experience of hopelessness and defeat,
readiness activities like disaster risk reduction and management trainings can be used. Within
the school, training can be given to both individuals and groups. Nevertheless, the less probable
it is that an experience may seriously traumatize a person, the more information that is
accessible to them beforehand about what to expect and what to do is a requirement.
In the past, disaster preparedness programs had given less attention to psychosocial
preparedness activities. Effective disaster preparedness programs for children could be
achieved by introducing psychosocial preparedness activities in ongoing disaster preparedness
programs for the children in schools. When psychosocial competence is built among the
children, it gives a holistic care and support for them. To provide such programs, teachers are
found to be the effective resource with in the school system. Psychosocial preparedness
programs can be included in the teacher curriculum training. Teachers and other school
personnel should be provided with regular supervision and capacity building activities on topics
related to psychosocial preparedness and support. As teachers are always available to help
children when they are in difficult situation, there is a need to include teachers in the process of
preparing children to improve their psychosocial competence.

The impact of disaster on children could be minimized by preparing them to face the
psychosocial situations after a disaster in a very valuable manner. Disaster preparedness that
includes the psychosocial aspects along with the physical preparedness would help in achieving
this goal. As the children face various psychosocial problems after disaster, preparing them to
face the psychosocial issues through psychosocial disaster preparedness would help in the
process of normalization. In the process of preparing the children, inclusion of teachers by
training them on the same would help in institutionalization of care and ensure sustainability of
the knowledge and the program. Thus the development of such psychosocial disaster
preparedness program and its integration within the school curriculum is a must.
As catastrophes are unexpected, we can not prevent them to happen. So we need to ready
ourselves once it hit us. We need to be pro active rather than reactive to this calamities.
Therefore we need to mitigate them. Disaster mitigation measures are those that eliminate or
reduce the impacts and risks of hazards through proactive measures taken before an
emergency or disaster occur. An all-hazards emergency management and mitigation approach
looks at all potential risks and impacts, natural and human-induced (intentional and non-
intentional) to ensure that decisions made to mitigate against one type of risk do not increase
our vulnerability to other risks.
There are several types of disaster mitigation. Disaster mitigation measures may be
structural (e.g. flood dikes) or non-structural (e.g. land use zoning). Mitigation activities should
incorporate the measurement and assessment of the evolving risk environment. Activities may
include the creation of comprehensive, pro-active tools that help decide where to focus funding
and efforts in risk reduction. Other examples of mitigation measures include: Hazard mapping,
adoption and enforcement of land use and zoning practices, implementing and enforcing
building codes, flood plain mapping, reinforced typhoon safe rooms, securing electrical cables
to prevent electric shocks, raising of homes in flood-prone areas, disaster mitigation public
awareness, information programs and insurance programs.
Subsequent to the repercussion of calamity, bouncing back to mental normalcy is the next most
important thing to consider. there is a need for strengthening the capacity of national
educational systems for school based mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in
emergencies, establishing general and psychosocial crisis plans for schools, strengthening
emergency education capacities by using participatory methods among children, training and
supervising teachers in delivering basic psychosocial support. Discussing children's rights,
positive discipline and standard code of conduct is also an important concern

The most significant thing past a disaster is offering children a safe and secure space where they can
express their fears and worries .  Conducting Sport fest in schools give these children the
opportunity to explore and process their emotional experiences with sports and play, while
ensuring they don’t fall behind in their learning. Every sports session maybe consists of
activities that have a specific goal related to a theme such as dealing with anger or stress and
interacting with peers at least once a week. After a natural catastrophe Children are naturally to
cope up being naturally resilient on their own, but they need our support to be like well
rounded children again.