An ongoing, multi-faceted program for victims of terror attacks and their families.

Victims of terror attacks, whether or not physically injured, sometimes suffer long-term posttraumatic symptoms, although the intensity of symptoms differs among individuals. Often, after discharge from the hospital, additional posttraumatic symptoms and emotional distress are evident, together with difficulty in readjusting to a normal life. This paper describes an ongoing multi-faceted program to empower victims and their families and assist them on the journey to recovery. The program is operated by the social work department in one of the main hospitals in Israel, in alliance with a voluntary non-profit organization in the U.S. One hundred seventeen victims of terror attacks who were previously hospitalized in the hospital for immediate care after attack were enrolled in the program, which is structured to offer comprehensive help in order to meet the psychological, material, and social needs of the participants and their families. Based on needs assessment, the participants are offered individual, family, and group therapies and community activities. Different elements of the project are described, and the need to further develop intervention models and to evaluate them is highlighted.

Family support and victim identification in mass casualty terrorist attacks: an integrative approach.

Terrorist bombing attacks in Israel between 2000 and 2004 caused mass casualties. After each attack in the north of Israel, Rambam Medical Center, the largest hospital in the region, absorbs the majority of injured, especially the more severely injured and unidentified victims. Immediately with the media reports of a terrorist attack, tens of relatives come to the hospital, looking for missing family members. This paper describes an assistance unit for families of unidentified victims. It is staffed by the hospital's social work department, and its tasks are to identify the unidentified victims, help relatives find and be united with them, and assist other relatives in the identification of bodies of deceased family members. The process involves gathering information from relatives and cross-checking it with data and pictures from the hospitals' emergency and operating rooms; and providing crisis intervention and psychological first aid to victims' relatives. The family assistance unit works with several other professional units in the hospital and in the community, and always adjusts its operations to the features of each event. Clearer guidelines for dynamic training of social workers and research-based interventions to prevent compassion fatigue among the workers must be further developed.

The stress and coping of Israeli emergency room social workers following terrorist attacks.

The authors of this qualitative study analyze Israeli hospital social workers' emotional responses to working with civilian casualties in the wake of an unprecedented surge of terrorist violence. Data are based on four focus groups conducted with 38 hospital social workers in relation to their experience with clients in the emergency room. Three themes were identified: (a) Restoring a lost sense of personal security as a necessary stepping-stone toward resuming professional performance, (b) Meeting the families'pain and responding to it, and (c) Disconnecting emotionally in the service of the professional self. The authors discuss the findings in light of the literature on peritraumatic dissociation among helpers.