Supporting children to cope with disaster
World Mental Health Day is a timely annual reminder that there is no health without mental health. The theme of World Mental Health Day this year is the urgent need to support the mental health and psychosocial needs of people affected by humanitarian emergencies.
Crises such as natural disasters, conflicts, and public health emergencies cause emotional distress, with one in five individuals experiencing a mental health condition. Supporting the mental well-being of individuals during and after such crises is not just important – it saves lives, gives people the strength to cope, the space to heal and to recover and rebuild not only as individuals but as communities.
At Partnership for Children, we recognise the importance of helping children to cope when faced with adversity so that they can go on to rebuild their lives and thrive. We were therefore delighted to partner with the Association of Friends of the Mohammed VI University Hospital, Marrakech to run an adapted version of Zippy’s Friends with children who had been affected by the devasting earthquake in Morocco on September 8, 2023. It was hoped that children taking part would be better able to adapt to changes and cope with the difficult post-earthquake situation.
A psychosocial health action research project called "Les Amis de L'Atlas" (the Friends of the Atlas) based on "Les Amis de Zippy” was developed to measure the state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the coping strategies of children in the regions most affected by the earthquake, one year after the event, and to enable them to develop effective coping strategies to deal with the challenges of life after the earthquake.
The intervention was carried out from January to July 2025 with 536 children in six rural municipalities in the province of Al Haouz, which was strongly impacted by the earthquake. 23 teachers and 10 supervisors were trained in December 2024 and materials were translated into Arabic. Children aged 6 to16 years took part in 16 sessions to promote their mental health and emotional well-being. During the programme, children repeatedly experimented with a variety of coping strategies that taught them how to feel better and help each other. This was followed by an end-of-programme celebration (a key part of Zippy’s Friends) with prizes and gifts for the children.
“This project has made it possible to bring a moment of well-being and relief to these traumatised children and to trace the smile on their faces.”
Data was collected from children and teachers pre and post intervention to find out whether there had been an improvement in the signs of PTSD and the children's coping strategies. The results were extremely encouraging, for example, 71% of the children taking part displayed normal levels of stress after the intervention versus 32.3% prior to the intervention. For those children who had probable PTSD, this decreased from 48.1% pre intervention to 15.6% post intervention.
“The project helped establish deep relationships between teachers and students based on affection, esteem and friendship”.
In summary, this research project significantly improved the psychosocial health status of the children who had been affected by the earthquake and it is hoped that it can be used as a model to introduce psychosocial health in schools throughout Morocco.
On this World Mental Health Day, we want to thank the team in Morocco and all our partner organisations around the world who work so hard to promote good mental health and give all children, including those facing adversity, the skills to cope with life’s difficulties.
