Türkiye provides psychological support to children affected by quakes

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - Türkiye's Family and Social Services Ministry is helping children in the capital Ankara who were victims of the February quakes steer clear of depression.

The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes struck 11 Turkish provinces — Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa, claiming more than 50,000 lives.

Over 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the quakes, as well as many others in northern Syria.

Deniz Kocak, a psychologist working at the ministry, has been part of various activities which were underway to support children victims in Ankara’s Kazan and Kizilcahamam districts following twin devastating earthquakes.

“We have built playgrounds and playgroups for preschool children staying in hotels. We also organized museum and cinema tours as well as shows which children can attend with their families with the contribution of municipalities and some foundations,” Kocak told Anadolu.

Kocak said that they also visited earthquake victims in their new houses.

“We conduct individual interviews with children in need of psychological support. We started with psychological first aid and then continued with psychosocial support activities,” she said.

Kocak said several examinations have been conducted to determine the physical needs of victims and to ensure the coordination and delivery.

“Some 90% of the children in Kazan and Kizilcahamam continue their education. They were enrolled in schools in the region. Some children do not want to go to school as they do not want to be separated from their families. We provide them with psychological support and guide them to continue their education,” she said.

“Children's adaptation to their new schools progressed faster than we thought. The number of children who have problems with absenteeism from school is low. This process has progressed in a much more positive direction as their peers, teachers embraced them with love,” Kocak added.

- Children’s integration to new social environment

Nearly 10,000 earthquake victims, including 600 children, migrated to Ankara’s Cubuk district following February quakes, Burhanettin Celik, a social service worker at the ministry, told Anadolu.

“Our social service center in Cubuk district provided psychological support to the children affected by the disaster to help them overcome their trauma,” Celik said.

Celik underlined that families who settled in Cubuk had concerns about how to explain the earthquake to their children.

“In the first place, we gave the necessary information to the families about what needs to be done in order for the children to understand this process correctly. Secondly, the children needed to gradually return to their routine, such as getting up early in the morning and going to school, after the acute stage completed,” Celik said.

During this process, the ministry personnel built play therapy rooms at the social service center, said Celik, adding that children were also given picture analysis training by their teachers.

“Some 17 trained personnel visited the houses of more than 6,000 people one by one. During these visits, individuals in need of psychosocial therapy were identified. The majority of them were children,” he said.

These children were also given therapy gradually after the acute phase was over, Celik said.

“We organized various entertaining activities and shows, such as puppet making, so that children can get away from their traumatic memories. We also distributed gifts to them,” he said.

In order for children to continue their education in a healthy way, they also contacted their teachers in their new schools and made them aware of how to treat children victims.

“We urged them to avoid engaging in behaviors that would remind the children of their disaster-related memories. The teachers then warned the students in their classes about this issue,” he said.

The aim was to establish a social environment where children could continue their routine and ordinary lives without any change, according to Celik.