Schools regularly find themselves dealing with the aftermath of family, community and national tragedies. In this article, two university-based educators share their experiences of working with schools to engage children in arts-based activities to support the processing of the traumatic events they endured. In both cases, children in local…

New Zealand has faced an unprecedented series of disaster events in recent years. The Canterbury earthquakes provided an opportunity to document the role that schools played in supporting their communities to respond to and recover from such events. It is important that we capture what we have learnt from these experiences to help other schools in…

The earthquakes that rocked the city of Christchurch and surrounding districts in Canterbury, New Zealand, were to take their toll on families, schools and communities. The places that had once represented safety and security for most children were literally and figuratively turned upside down. Rather than reinforce the trauma and continue to…