When Their World Falls Apart: Helping Families and Children Manage the Effects of Disasters.(Book review)

When Their World Falls Apart: Helping Families and Children Manage the Effects of Disasters. Lawrence B. Rosenfeld, Joanne S. Caye, Ofra Avalon, and Mooli Lahad. Washington, DC: NASW Press, 2004, 488 pages. ISBN: 0-87101-358-4 $54.99 paperback.

This book covers a comprehensive range of research findings and practice methods on disasters few other texts have synthesized. The authors discuss natural and technological disasters as well as complex emergencies, providing research results, visual images on CD-ROM, and case examples from many different nations and cultures. The text examines disasters, traumatic stress, and social disruption originating at the community level. An ecological framework helps integrate research and intervention focused on children, families, organizations, and communities in disaster.

The book also presents research on interventions in warfare, terrorism, and chronic violence, events much more long term in duration than disasters. The social work response to warfare, terrorism, and chronic violence is an important and timely topic. However, the book does not clearly discuss similarities and differences between conflict emergencies and disasters. Because of this, the authors are often unable to generalize research on effective interventions in complex emergencies to natural and technological disasters. An additional limitation of this interdisciplinary book is the lack of inclusion of the growing body of disaster research by social workers in the United States (Zakour, 2005).

Part I provides an overview of theoretical models of disaster, with a particular focus on vulnerability. The book describes concentric circle models of risk, vulnerability, and social support. Comparison of the posttraumatic stress disorder and resiliency models for coping in a disaster emphasizes the strengths perspective. These models suggest new research questions about variables affecting vulnerability and resiliency in disasters. In part 2, a chapter on the child's reaction to disaster discusses reactions in each developmental stage from birth to late adolescence. ...