Newswise — Two faculty members from the Department of Counseling and Human Services in Johns Hopkins University's School of Professional Studies in Business and Education left today for Louisiana to help with setting up a mental health crisis response team for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, especially children and families.
"In times of tragedy and disaster, children sometimes display symptoms that are akin to post-traumatic stress disorder," said Eric Green, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins who this summer moved to Washington, D.C. from New Orleans, where he had been a school counselor and child therapist the past several years.
Eric Green and Alan Green, an associate professor and coordinator of school counseling at Johns Hopkins, will be traveling to Tennessee, where they will pick up a colleague, Kristie Gibbs, an assistant professor of counseling at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. They will then travel on to Opelousas, La., where four shelters have been set up by local churches and sponsored by the Red Cross and where hundreds of families and children are taking refuge.
Joining the Greens (no relation) and Gibbs in Louisiana will be: Jennifer Baggerly, an associate professor at the University of South Florida; Vivian McCollum, chair of the counseling department at Albany State University in Georgia; Reese House, former director of the Education Trust; and Barbara Hebert, an assistant professor of counseling at Northwestern State University in Louisiana. Together, the team will triage what needs to be done the most, but plan to work directly at several shelters, where they will establish play therapy areas for children, assess other needs and train locals to carry on the work, once they have to return to Johns Hopkins.
Eric Green said the team of therapists and school counselors, who are volunteering their time for this effort, are in need of direct donations to establish the mental health relief effort. Anyone interested in helping may send cash or toys, dolls, puppets, sand miniatures and picture books and children's reading materials directly to: The Rev. Monsignor Paul Metrejean 136 Metrejean Lane Opelousas, La. 70570 337-942-6123 In addition, the team urges other child therapists who have a current license and experience in play therapy and are interested in helping to contact their local Red Cross chapter.
Eric Green said that research has proven play therapy may assist children to cope with the overwhelming emotions that surface around such traumatic events. In play therapy, counselors first create a safe, warm and comforting environment where children are allowed to play, which may include drawing pictures or sketching images or figures in a sand box. Trained counselors then follow the children's play, ultimately helping the child connect the strong emotion with an image, Green said. "Once they are able to connect the emotion with the image, an archetypal healing occurs," said Eric Green, who grew up outside of New Orleans in a place called Crowley and who has spent most of his life there.
The Johns Hopkins-led team is to arrive in Louisiana Wednesday and begin working.
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