Resources to Help Children Cope with Tragedy

Many resources are available to help us as family members, community leaders and social service providers to help cope with violent and traumatic events.

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration operates the Disaster Distress Helpline, our nation’s first hotline dedicated to providing disaster crisis counseling. This toll-free helpline—1-800-985-5990--operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is free, confidential and multilingual. You can also contact the Helpline via SMS (Text ‘TalkWithUs’ to 66746).
• The National Child Trauma Stress Network created a resource page in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.
• The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) has resources about the following topics:
  • Children and firearms
  • Children and grief
  • Post traumatic stress disorder
  • Understanding violent behavior in children and adolescents
  • Disaster and Trauma Resource Center
     
• The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) also has useful information about children and violence. On Tuesday, Dec. 18 NIMH will also host a twitter chat on stress and anxiety at 3:30 p.m.
• And PBS has a strong resource on having difficult conversations with kids.
   

View President Obama's remarks at the Sandy Hook interfaith prayer vigil.

“This job of keeping our children safe, and teaching them well, is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation. And in that way, we come to realize that we bear a responsibility for every child because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours’; that we’re all parents; that they’re all our children.”

- President Barack Obama