At the most simple level, allowing children to tell their own stories of a disaster and draw their own pictures of what happened to them and how they felt about it can be of considerable assistance in both diagnosis and therapy. Training manuals make use of coloring books. The Fresno County Mental Health Department developed a coloring book for earthquake victims in Coalinga, and a local community organization programmed to produce 10,000 copies, which were distributed near the time of the first-year anniversary of the event. These and similar coloring books explain simply the nature of the disaster, acknowledge human reactions of fear and anxiety, and provide blank pages for a child to add his or her drawings or comments. The National Institute of Mental Health has copies of these and other such booklets on file.
Books are also valuable resources.
Local public libraries can put together lists of available books, by age group, about the environment and environmental hazards, separation and loss, and adaptation and coping. Likewise, dolls, puppets, and toys can be used in play to elicit children's concerns and conflicts and to help resolve them. Group game in which touching of persons is an important component can encourage mutual support among children and between children and their caretakers. Reading about disasters, understanding what causes natural disasters, and talking about feelings will help children who have experienced a disaster to communicate their feelings and fears. Through thoughtful questioning, children can be guided to relate their own experiences to those of the characters in the books.