The "la Caixa" Foundation promotes a programme of resilience and post-traumatic prevention for children affected by the volcano on La Palma
The Deputy Director General of "la Caixa" Foundation, Marc Simón; the territorial director of CaixaBank in the Canary Islands, Juan Ramón Fuertes, and the general director of Organisation, Innovation and Quality of the Regional Ministry of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, Gregorio José Cabrera and the dean of the College of Psychology of Tenerife, Carmen Linares, presented a new programme in La Palma to promote resilience and prevent post-traumatic stress for the children of La Palma and their families, following the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano between September and December 2021.
This phenomenon had a high impact on 737 hectares, with the destruction by lava of a total of 1,830 buildings and the evacuation of 7,000 people. Unexpectedly, the families of La Palma were faced with hundreds of earthquakes, torrents of lava advancing through their territory, confinement due to ash and air pollution or having to leave their homes suddenly, among many other alarming situations that involved states of shock, fear, stress, anguish and the uncertainty of not knowing if they could recover their previous life. With all this, there are emotional consequences that have yet to manifest themselves.
Faced with this situation, the CaixaProinfancia programme of the "la Caixa" Foundation, under the advice of experts in child resilience in natural disaster situations, has created a programme of different resources to accompany and reinforce resilience. This is the ability to face and overcome adversity, and neuroscience shows that it can be trained, although it requires a slow process which is more effective if it has the involvement of the family and the community. The main author of the contents of these materials is Dr. Jorge Barudy, neuropsychiatrist, child psychiatrist, family therapist and expert in trauma history.
Marc Simón, deputy director general of the "la Caixa" Foundation said: "For us it is a priority that the children of La Palma can laugh, enjoy, play, learn and live together again. In short, that they recover their emotional stability. And beyond that, with these resources that we offer them from CaixaProinfancia, totally adapted to their needs, we help them to learn from this tough experience and strengthen their own abilities, encouraging them to be builders of a more conscious, humane, fair and cohesive society".
The programme, the content of which has been reviewed and endorsed by the Department of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands and the College of Psychologists of Tenerife, is set out in various publications aimed at children, families and education professionals:
- The story "Once upon a time there was a volcano". It provides factual information about why a volcano erupts and deals with the feelings that such a situation produces. The story is available both in paper and audiovisual versions on the Youtube channel of the "la Caixa" Foundation.
- An exercise booklet that complements the content of the story with practical activities to work on in class or at home.
- A guide for parents, which contains information and recommendations to help their children overcome the eruption of the volcano.
- A manual aimed at professionals working with children (primary school teachers, social educators, health professionals, psychologists, among others), which offers them a reference framework for working on resilience.
All the material will reach the 49 schools in La Palma from March onwards, and will be distributed to the 3,500 children so that they can work on it in class and at home with their families. The resources are also available in online format and can be downloaded free of charge from the CaixaProinfancia website: https://fundacionlacaixa.org/es/materiales-resiliencia- infantil-la-palma
The resilience programme not only consists of offering these specific resources for the different groups, but a specific training plan has also been drawn up for both professionals and families, with the aim of being able to provide a more in-depth approach to working with children, as well as being able to respond to their concerns.
Once the phase of distributing the materials and implementing the training has been completed, an impact assessment will be carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of these instruments in promoting child resilience in traumatic situations.
CaixaProinfancia will also continue to offer psychological care, educational reinforcement, leisure and free time services and speech therapy to the 145 socially excluded families that the programme serves in six municipalities of La Palma, through two collaborating organisations: Radio ECCA and Mojo de Caña.
Just three of these six municipalities have been affected by the eruption: El Paso, Los Llanos and Tazacorte. Unfortunately, two of the educational centres with which the programme worked were destroyed by the lava.
