Wong Spearheads Psychological First Aid to Earthquake Victims in China

Story originally published by NewsBytes, October 2008

By Cadonna Dory

A month after the devastating earthquake in China on May 12, Marleen Wong, assistant dean of field education at the USC School of Social Work and a pre-eminent expert on school crisis and recovery, traveled to the epicenter of the Sichuan Province temblor and other surrounding communities to help train volunteers working with survivors.
 
Wong and colleague Suh Chen Hsiao, MSW '90, a psychiatric social worker at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, endured a four-hour trip on the dirt roads to Hongbaizhen, an isolated mountain town where the 7.9-earthquake hit, killing nearly 70,000 people and displacing 15 million.

Children and adults were openly expressing their grief and were desperate for reassurance and support, Wong wrote in diary entries.

"It was heart-wrenching to see parents calling out to their dead children and working with the children who had lost their parents," she said.

It also was difficult to hear stories like the one of the 6-year-old girl, who spent 50 hours buried under rubble but protected by the body of her teacher. Although she survived, she and hundreds of others will face emotional trauma, Wong said.

Frequently consulted by the U.S. Department of Education to assist schools impacted by violence, shootings, terrorism and natural disasters, Wong has lent her expertise to the recovery of major crises, ranging from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to the Columbine school shootings.

Wong, who currently serves on the American Psychological Association's Presidential Task Force on Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Trauma in Children and Adolescents, along with other social workers, helped train hundreds of medical staff and volunteers on psychological first aid, post-traumatic stress and other ways to help survivors get through the tragedy. She also spent time talking about the structural, training and funding options available for building a children's mental health service, which is in progress.

The volunteers were very young, some high school students, and there weren't many mental health professionals. However, Wong said, they were able to understand the concepts and asked relevant questions.

"They were hungry for simple guidance and so very grateful for any kind of information," Wong wrote in her June 13 entry.

Some of the volunteers were worried for the children and felt helpless because they were unable to assist them more. They worried about a 5-year-old girl with a scar on her back resulting from being buried by debris. The child screams whenever she sees a collapsed building, Wong wrote. And a 6-year-old boy who volunteers believe appears too calm after losing his two brothers. He draws a picture with cherries because his brothers liked cherries.

Wong tells volunteers they have done an excellent job and encourages them to try to get the 5-year-old to draw or verbally articulate why she is screaming and teach her how to breathe deeply when she is afraid, and slowly the screams will become less frequent and eventually go away.

As for the child who appears too calm, Wong said children sometimes have delayed reactions, which is why long-term help is necessary.

Wong, who was in China from June 10-18, told volunteers when they leave Hongzbaizhen that they, too, should seek help and talk with peers who understand what goes into comforting traumatized children.

Other USC School of Social Work faculty and students also contributed their expertise to the situation. Clinical Associate Professor Doni Whitsett sent a number of documents on trauma, crisis counseling and disaster to academic leaders and mental health professionals in China. She also organized a group of the school's Mandarin-speaking students who translated some of the documents.

Doctoral candidate Yawen Li initiated a research project with Associate Professor Xuesong He, deputy head of the Department of Social Work at East China University of Science and Technology, on the well-being of older adults living in temporary housing after the earthquake. Iris Chi, who holds the Golden Age Association/Frances Wu Chair for the Chinese Elderly professorship and directs the school's China Program, served as a research consultant on the study.

The project, funded by East China University of Science and Technology, aims to examine how older adults responded to the earthquake, how they view their temporary communities and how that perception of community affects their physical and psychosocial well-being.

Meanwhile, Wong has been asked to return to China to make a multi-year commitment to train mental health professionals in evidence-based interventions including the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, a program she helped develop using skill-based group intervention to relieve symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and general anxiety among children traumatized by violence, bullying and trauma.

In addition to her clinical post with USC, which she started in August, Wong is director and principal investigator for the Los Angeles Unified School District/RAND/UCLA Trauma Services Adaptation Center for Schools, a community-based research partnership and member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.