‘We know kids do better when the adults in their lives are doing better’
Posted: August 31, 2023
To support a grieving community faced with rebuilding after the Lāhainā wildfire disaster on Aug. 8, the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education is consulting with a national mental health support group to provide training, counseling, and support to educators, students, and their families.
Dr. Melissa Brymer, director of disaster programs at the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, participated in the Lāhaināluna Complex Staff Convening events Monday and Tuesday by facilitating school staff meetings and also appeared at and addressed questions during community meetings about schools on Maui Wednesday.
She spoke with the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association about what’s required to create a program for Maui recovery that will work now and into the future.
Brymer, who is based at UCLA’s Duke National Center, coordinates 199 funded centers focused on child trauma. She was also the lead advisor to the Newton School District in Connecticut after the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, where 26 people, including 20 students and six adults, were killed in 2012.
HSTA President Osa Tui, Jr. said, “With the staggering need for mental health supports by our school employees, I’m grateful that Dr. Brymer is bringing her much-needed expertise and experience in other national disasters to support our Lāhainā educators as they prepare to address student needs in the weeks to come.”
Recovery for Maui must include school support
“We know that there are going to be both staff and students who are going to experience moderate PTSD or grief that are going to want services in schools,” Brymer said.
Brymer’s network has mental health programs that have worked with adolescents, kindergartners and even younger children. She indicated that different materials work for different age groups, including scripts for educators to answer students’ questions.
“So in these early days, are there psycho-educational materials on both grief and trauma that are culturally appropriate for your diverse needs? Have they [educators] been given scripts of how to talk to the young first graders or the second graders who might have questions? High schoolers will have different questions,” she said.
Brymer said, “What we try to do first and foremost, is to think about your tiers of interventions. So are we making sure we’re providing psychoeducation? Are we providing wellness initiatives? Are we providing those additional supports, whether it’s even making sure that people are able to meet their basic needs? Things that we’re hearing about [today such as] childcare? Busing? All those things are absolutely essential.”
School-based recovery programs, Brymer said, should include a team for staff and a separate team for students, because staff and student needs differ.
She also stressed that schools need to consider building these programs into the school days.
“Educators have told me over the years, ‘You can’t expect me to do this after hours, or frankly, on the weekends. I’m exhausted, I have to rebuild things.’ So what systems or programs can we do in school?”
School support, she said, “may mean additional support so that educators, especially if they’re in the classroom, have that ability to take that moment to actually utilize them.”
Linking with community partners critical in providing care
Some, Brymer pointed out, will seek services in the community, “so there’s going to be additional training and support and mental health providers in the community. We need to make sure that your school systems are aware of what’s going to be happening and have that linkage.”
She’s also looking at programs to support parents and said that her organization can partner with the Maui community to provide that training.
“We know kids do better when the adults in their lives are doing better, and that’s why there has to be, for a recovery program, strengthening your educators in this, their parents, and their kids,” Brymer said.
Brymer is working with the state of Hawaiʻi’s mental health support networks including the Hawaiʻi Psychological Association and Hawaiʻi adolescent and child psychiatrists teams.
“There’s so much wealth of talent out there. Let’s coordinate it together. Let’s make sure they’re trained for this specific incident, and that we partner together to get those needs met.”
She said there’s no “one size fits all” solution to recovery, so plans only work “when we partner together.”
“That includes your youth’s voices, your parents’ voices, and you as educators. You guys already have the heart. You know what works for your community. Let’s make sure we build an infrastructure to support your community.”
As of Thursday, the HSTA distributed nearly $120,000 in relief checks to 121 members and three teacher retirees who lost their homes and classrooms in the Aug. 8 fires. HSTA’s emergency fire response efforts are being paid for with union funds as well as $130,000 worth of donations received so far from individuals and organizations from Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawai’i, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
“I am humbled by just how far and wide people have opened their pocketbooks to support our affected members,” said Osa Tui, HSTA’s president.
HSTA’s donation webpage is continuously updated with new ways to donate to educators affected by the fires.
The Maui fires killed at least 115 people, displaced about 4,300 others and damaged or destroyed 2,700 buildings. The deadliest fires in U.S. history for more than a century, they caused an estimated $5.6 billion in damage.