Within the last decade, the role of the school psychologist has been changing as a result of the impact of disasters and increasing violence in schools and communities. This workshop was designed to help school psychologists prepare for and intervene in disasters in their school communities. The goals were: (1) to encourage school psychologists to…

This paper and accompanying workshop address the changing and expanding role of school psychologists resulting from disasters and increasing violence in schools and communities. The objectives of this workshop were: to encourage school psychologists to expand their roles to include crisis intervention as an essential part of their service…

This report describes how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, the South Carolina Department of Mental Health activated its Emergency Preparedness Plan to assist mental health centers and their staff in providing crisis counseling services to the general public. The first section explains the history and structure of the involvement by the…

Debate surrounding the 1988 Yellowstone National Park fires provides material for a case study into the relationship between a crisis and public argument. Studies like this reflect the importance of a recent trend in higher education, namely, the analysis of environmental issues from different academic perspectives. In this case, analysis of…

This paper focuses on the mental health consequences of the disaster in Armero, Colombia which resulted from a volcanic eruption and mudslide, and highlights the role of the primary care worker in delivering mental health care to disaster victims. Eight characteristics of disasters that are closely related to their psychopathogenetic potential…

This paper contains an outline of a workshop designed for the disaster mental health worker. The goal of the workshop is to describe how disaster services are different from other mental health services and to provide suggestions on how to make these services more effective. The types of disasters, the anatomy of a disaster, and time phases of a…

This presentation provides wilderness rescue workers with an overview of the psychological reactions of victims of accidents and natural disasters and suggested responses for rescuers and caregivers. A personal account of rescue and death in a drowning accident illustrates how the rescuer can also be traumatized by such an incident and may suffer…

In this paper, two major schools of thought regarding disaster and disaster assistance are identified and examined in order to bring to light their underlying assumptions about assistance and development in the Third World. The first section discusses the context of the problem, citing figures and presenting charts to illustrate the scope and…

A constructivistic learning process was used with primary and secondary students in Genoa, Italy, to approach the problem of the diffusion of the alloctonous algae Caulerpa taxifolia in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. Because of the lack of a continuous research program in Italy, the media played a heavy role in the transfer of information to…