Lessons Learned for Protecting and Educating Children after the Gulf Coast Hurricanes

Natural disasters are something that any of us cannot control or prevent from happening. The best thing is just to prepare when they are predicted to come. Natural disasters can cause people to be left without a home, schools, communities, neighborhoods, can be destroyed. Natural disasters can leave people to figure how their future will turn out. According to the article many children and families were greatly affected by Hurricane Katrina. These events can cause children to question their parent of why these terrible events happen. It can also raise questions in the minds of parents and officials. Worries about safety, continued education, jobs, missing families, and homelessness can raise questions and many concerns.

The article discusses the disaster plans that could improve protecting children. In this plan school can open earlier when school personnel to coordinate how resource will be allocated. With school in session, the community can continue in other improvements after the storm. Child welfare services cad provide needed services to foster parents. The article focuses on the challenge of locating missing children. Children were separated from their parents and were sent to shelters. The NCMEC is responsible for helping children to reunite with their families. With special delivery challenges, all out of state foster families were managed by caseworkers in Louisiana with nearly any supervision by the case workers. Foster families who stayed out of state were hit with problems of having their health services and medication accepted. During great chaos, levels of stress are heightened and this can cause for more protective service intervention. Some foster parents were unable to handle the situation of the hurricane and returned children back to the agency. There was great concerned about how the aftermath of the storm would be funded. These would help with recovery efforts.


Gao. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06680r.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJS_Q53tSHE
This is a link to a trailer on youtube called "Katrina's Children." It is a documentary on children affected by Katrina.

Where's the Care?

I was sad, disappointed, and had almost given up on people when Victoryland was closed. I do not gamble, I understand that it hurts families because of addiction. But I did support how many people it employed and how many funds it gave to school in Macon County. Macon County is a rural area and everyone has to do whatever they have to do to survive and make it. The richest part of this county is its natural resources and its history. The history of Macon County is really all that we have. There are millions of people who have heard or admire the Tuskegee Airmen, the Syphilis Study, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver..etc. The list can go on. I felt bad about the closing of Victoryland because so people depended on that job. Some people do not have enough skills or education to just pick up another job. I think about those children at home who's parents do not have a job anymore. What are they to do now? I am sure there were college students who worked at Victoryland and depended on their jobs for school and daily living. Some students are already far from home. Closing Victoryland in an area that is poor, only makes the situation worse then what it was before now. There should have been a solution or opportunity to fix the situation besides dictating it. I am beginning to lose respect and faith in those who chose to do harm then do good but I am not giving up on those who are trying to make it and unfortunately got caught up in the cross fire.

Posters & Doughnuts

The poster presentation this week were absolutely grand. Everyone stepped up from the last poster. I think every peer needed the opportunity to understand what to do for the posters then they can let their creativity flow. This poster for me was a little more challenging then the first poster. I spent around two to three hours on this poster. The poster was more challenging because there was more information to find and look up. We were also instructed to pick a state and find the information on that state. My state was Ohio. I picked Ohio because many of my friends are from there and I have to hear about Ohio all of the time. Its a great state. The Ohio government website was able to give me great information about the state that I needed. The site also had direct access to Ohio representative websites, this made it easy because I did not have to look for the information all over the Internet. At first it was very hard to place all of my information on the poster. I become worried because I knew that it all had to fit. Then a fellow peer directed me to the other poster template. It had more space, but I still found it harder to place all of the information. I found this application on PowerPoint that allows you to place information on spaces and save them as pictures for the poster. I was so happy to find this because it aided me in placing all of my information on the poster easier. When my poster printed out, it was so pretty and I was so proud of it.

After-School Policy Brief 2: A Fact Sheet on Children in Youth in Out-of-School Time

This was a great and a favorite article. After school and out of school programs are extremely effective. Education just does not have to be in the classroom with a teacher during certain hours all of the time. Education can be after school and most important at home. After school programs provides students with activities outside of the classroom. After school and out of school programs help students to improve and strength knowledge and skills. After school programs give students the opportunity to communicate and strengthen their social skills with other students. These programs can provide parent workshops and English-Language classes After school programs provide physical, dental and eye exams. Mental health counseling and teen parent programs can be provided in the programs. Students who are in after school programs are more likely to not participate in risky behavior. After school programs also broaden students in other areas of education such as arts and music. After school programs are great programs but also require more funding to continue its programs. Funding has to be set aside for trained after school workers high quality technical assistance, and program evaluations.