RECOVERY

After every disaster comes the recovery period. During this time, life returns to normal. You restock your supplies, repair damage to your facility, and deal with any emotional or psychological after-effects among staff or young people. This is the time to assess both your general level of preparedness and the disaster response plan that you followed, and to implement changes that might be necessary to ensure a better, more effective response in the future.

Restock and repair

Restock your emergency supplies as quickly as possible after a disaster, to ensure that you are adequately prepared for the next emergency situation. Check everything that might have been used in response to the recent crisis—the first aid kit, Go-Bags, flashlights, fire extinguishers. Replace used batteries, food, and other supplies, and ensure that your stockpile is organized and ready.

Your facility may need attention, particularly if the disaster was a fire, tornado, or other destructive event. While your facility’s insurance policy will probably come into play for large-scale repairs, you’ll want to inspect affected areas to ensure that there are no issues requiring immediate attention. Check smoke alarms, windows, locks, and lighting to ensure that your facility is prepared for the next time disaster strikes.

Help youth cope with trauma

A disaster can leave those who experienced it feeling frightened and confused. Youth can detect fear and sadness in the adults around them, which in turn can cause the youth to feel even more fearful and upset than they might otherwise be. Ensuring that your staff is well trained to respond to any disaster situation is one way you can make disaster experiences less traumatic for young people. A confident staff will emote confidence, which will have a calming effect on youth. Involving youth in the creation of your disaster plan is another way to empower them when it comes to coping with disaster.

There is no denying, though, that for youth who are already struggling to cope with a world that may seem uncaring and too big to handle, a sudden disaster can leave them teetering on the edge of personal crisis. They may feel overwhelmed by how unsafe and dangerous the world appears. They may also feel unable to discuss their fears rationally. Older children, in particular, may respond to these feelings with anger and aggression, behavior that can manifest itself in trouble at school, substance abuse, and general withdrawal.

The key to avoiding these types of problems is a fast return to normalcy. Enabling youth to see that even a large-scale crisis can be dealt with efficiently and effectively can go a long way toward showing them that the world is, in fact, manageable—even in the face of disaster. Encourage them to have open and honest discussions about their feelings and experiences. Consider hosting a facility-wide meeting as soon as possible after a disaster, giving everyone present—staff and youth—the opportunity to share and listen. This type of meeting can be a valuable way to validate each individual’s feelings and perceptions, and can also turn into an effective forum for discussing the disaster response plan itself and how it might be improved.

Assess your plan

Continual self-assessment is an essential ingredient of a successful disaster response plan. As you learned in the “Response” section, no single plan can take into account every possible permutation of a disaster; once the crisis has passed, use the experience as an opportunity to refine your plan and ensure that the next time that particular disaster strikes, you’re even better prepared than before.

Plan a facility-wide staff meeting as soon as possible after the crisis is resolved. Review the disaster response plan, and discuss what parts of it worked, what parts didn’t, and what (if anything) could be done to make the entire plan more efficient. Were there supplies that would have been good to have? Did everybody on your staff know his or her role and act accordingly? Were emergency contact numbers correct? Did youth respond as you’d anticipated?

Don’t be afraid to get input from youth as well. Ask them how they felt during the disaster, and listen to their ideas about how to improve your overall response. In addition to helping you update your disaster plan, involving youth in this way can be an excellent method of getting them to discuss any lingering feelings of trauma stemming from the disaster.

When you’re ready, revise your old disaster response plan to incorporate your new ideas and procedures. Finally, hold trainings or drills to make sure that everybody understands and is comfortable with the new plan.

Moving on

Return to the disaster response plans you created in the “Response” section of this manual. On each one, consider the specific steps you would want to take during the recovery stage, and list them on the template. Think about the resources you will have used that might need replacement, contacts you may want to make, and meetings you may want to hold. Be as specific as you can.

To help you get started, here’s what the recovery section might look like for the fire response plan you reviewed earlier.

Recovery

Remember that there is no one “best” recovery plan—the idea is to list those points you will want to be sure to remember post disaster, and ensure that they happen as an integral part of your overall disaster response plan.