The New Zealand earthquakes and the role of schools in engaging children in emotional processing of disaster experiences

The earthquakes that rocked the city of Christchurch and surrounding districts in Canterbury, New Zealand, were to take their toll on families, schools and communities. The places that had once represented safety and security for most children were literally and figuratively turned upside down. Rather than reinforce the trauma and continue to frame children as passive victims, the study reported here aimed to help children reframe their experiences through active engagement in participatory research projects. This article reports on three schools drawn from a UNESCO-funded project in which schools recorded their earthquake stories. While children were the centre of each of the school’s earthquake stories, schools engaged children to different extents in their chosen projects. These three schools exemplify different places along a continuum of children’s engagement in research on their own experiences. In one school, children, families, teachers and the principal all contributed to an illustrated book of their experiences. In another school, children created a series of mosaic panels to record the community’s story before, during and after the earthquakes. In the third school, children became documentary makers and interviewed other children about their earthquake experiences. In all cases, children found their projects positive and helpful activities, enabling them to put their experiences into a broader context. This article argues that schools have an important role to play in providing emotional processing activities which help children gain perspective and distance as part of their recovery from large-scale disaster events.