Naomi L Baum

This study examined Israeli Arab and Jewish students' reports on needing help, a year after the Second Lebanon War and whether students' requests for support were associated with posttraumatic distress. The representative sample included 1,800 Jewish and 2,351 Arab students, grades 7-11. The questionnaires included items regarding (a) exposure to wartime events and other negative life events, (b) measures of posttraumatic stress disorder, and (c) needing help. The results showed that about 30% of the students reported needing help from any source (e.g., parents, peers) in the aftermath of the war. Arab students were more likely to report needing help than Jewish students. The students who reported needing help experienced higher levels of posttraumatic symptoms. Studies have shown that when children are directly exposed to war or terrorism, a large percentage experience posttraumatic stress (PTS; Pine & Cohen, 2002). In the case of ongoing terrorism, having been near the site of a terrorist attack often follows by PTS symptoms (Pat-Horenczyk et al., 2007).

Soldiers moving from the army to civilian life encounter significant challenges during this time of transition, both in Israel and internationally. Identifying this period of time as a critical one, the Peace of Mind program is an innovative intervention designed specifically to address the issues occurring therein. This unique model focuses on mental health and normalization of responses, as well as on the processing of traumatic experiences. It is based on the considerable experience at the Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma in the fields of resilience building and trauma treatment. After reviewing the literature on returning soldiers, the model is described and several vignettes are presented.

The Key to Resilience, a pilot study conducted with Israeli youth leaders (N = 78), focused on resilience building in the wake of trauma. The program was designed to reach youth who do not access existing mental health services, and used peer-based intervention as a way to expand mental health resources for this population. Evaluation of workshop participants was measured through pre- and post- questionnaires, which assessed exposure to traumatic events, flexibility, perceived social support, perceived stress, and workshop impact. Significant changes were found in both measures of flexibility and social support, indicating positive changes in the direction of growing resilience. Training youth leaders in resilience building can serve to expand mental health resources for youth in post- and peri-traumatic environments.

The Middle East has been in conflict for many decades and wars have become the ‘normative reality’ of children residing in the area. Questions have been raised about children's vulnerability to the stresses that come with living in a war area. Are children more resilient because they are more flexible in their ways of coping? Or are children more vulnerable because their psychological development is influenced by the environment?

A B S T R A C T The Building Resilience Intervention (BRI), a program developed in the wake of terrorism and war in Israel, provides teachers with resilience-building skills that enable them to support students suffering from post-traumatic distress. Teachers in the Bedouin city of Rahat were evaluated both before and after the BRI workshop intervention for post-traumatic distress levels, functional impairment, flexibility, emotional regulation, general resilience measures and workshop impact. Results showed significant increases among teachers in areas such as positive refocusing and reappraisal, and increased willingness to discuss traumatic material with their students. Incorporating resilience training in teacher education is discussed.

The resilience of teachers in the face of terror was examined in a narrative study of two Israeli kindergarten teachers over the course of one school year. During this time, there occurred frequent terror attacks as well as the threat of impending war with Iraq and the concomitant threat of chemical warfare. Each teacher's unique pattern of coping based on her own personal theory of resilience was examined. One teacher actively processed with her students stressful news items that the children had encountered. This was based on her belief that children would become more resilient if they had experience dealing with stress in a mediated fashion. The second teacher chose to create what she perceived to be a comfort zone for her students by actively avoiding open discussion about stressful events. She chose to focus on enhancing self-esteem, self-efficacy, and optimism, which she believed would produce greater resilience in her students. In developing these personal resilience theories, both teachers were able to move out of a paralyzed position that is typical of crisis and the immediate posttraumatic period, and move into active coping, thereby incorporating their unique theories of resilience into their personal professional knowledge. These practices were examined in light of current resilience theory.