Life in Israel comes with many challenges, and terror attacks are unfortunately a part of our ongoing reality. Every expression of support makes a difference, especially for children.
The aim of terrorism is often more about creating mental damage than large scale casualties. Post Traumatic Stress and many other disorders associated with exposure to violence, hinge upon the first 20 minutes of memory following a traumatic event.
The Issue
Terrorist acts may be carried out on physical targets in specific locations, yet the mental impact of these attacks have a far wider range. The mental wounds that these acts of violence inflict - often solidified in the first minutes and hours after an attack - are sometimes far harder to heal than physical damage.
In Israel, specifically over the last few years, the biggest source of psychological stress is bombings. Israeli bomb shelters are usually well stocked with physical provisions, but it is the emotional damage of the flight into a shelter that often has the most appreciable and longest lasting effects.
The Solution
The Healing Arts Kit. This kit was created by Artists 4 Israel to help children affected by physical attacks through a creative triage of the spirit in the critical first hours after exposure to trauma.
Designed by mental health professionals, art therapists, teachers and parents, these kits are specifically designed to help children regain a sense of peace and security by drawing upon the therapeutic power of creativity as well as provide a positive distraction during emergency moments - not only in the wake of an attack but in the months after for those living with the day-to-day realities of PTSD.
How It Works
Using the Healing Arts Kits will allow Israel's first responders to be as effective at treating children's emotional trauma as they currently are at physical injury by immediately breaking the mental loops that create scarring to prevent future trauma.
The kits will subtly shift a child's attention away from the atmosphere of fear into a creative and relaxed state along with exercises that guide a child's imagination to restructure the environment from severe stress into one that promotes healing - specifically by providing well-researched mental health care cleverly contained in creative children's "games" and "art activities."
What YOU can do to Help
Write an inspirational letter of friendship, strength, or solidarity to victims of terror. These are shared through our various networks that will reach the families and soldiers directly.
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