Case Study: Trauma and Child Survivors of Hurricane Katrina, U.S.









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Weekly Topic Overview:  Our focus this week is on children and adolescents who survived Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005. The purpose of this case study is to explore how children and adolescents experienced the hurricane and its aftermath, as well as how they responded to those experiences both in the short-and long-term. We will pay particular attention to how these survivors have come to understand this traumatic natural disaster and how it has shaped their childhoods, families, communities and overall life trajectories since 2005. We will analyze issues of vulnerability and resiliency, and work to determine what primary factors seemed to contribute to the resiliency found among some of the Hurricane Katrina child and adolescent survivors. We will conclude by comparing child and adolescent survivors’ experiences with trauma related to a natural disaster event with the traumatic experiences of other child and adolescent survivors examined in previous case studies.

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Weekly Learning Objectives:

This week you will...

1. Explore the experiences of natural disaster-related trauma as experienced by children and adolescent survivors of Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005.

2. Determine the short- and long-term effects Hurricane Katrina has had on child and adolescent survivors’ families, communities, childhoods and overall life trajectories.

3. Compare child and adolescent experiences with trauma related to a natural disaster versus other forms of traumatic events.