About Us
The Network for Enhancing Wellness in Disaster-Affected Youth (NEW DAY) brings together a national consortium of experts in child and adolescent mental health, disaster preparedness, and disaster recovery to expand the reach, scope, and equity of trauma-informed care for youth in disaster-prone and disaster-hit regions. Headquartered at Florida International University (FIU) in the Center for Children and Families (in collaboration with the Center for Child and Family Health and Boston University), NEW DAY is a SAMHSA-funded member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). We provide FREE professional trainings, education, and technical assistance in evidence-based disaster mental health for youth. NEW DAY Trainers bring decades of frontline experience preparing for and responding to disasters and leading large-scale professional training efforts. A central overarching mission of NEW DAY is to reduce racial, ethnic, and language disparities in children’s disaster behavioral health and service utilization.
Disasters and Youth
What are Disasters?
Disasters are disruptive events that disrupt and overwhelm entire communities at once. Natural disasters include hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, tsunamis, and floods, as well as extreme weather events such as blizzards, droughts, extreme heat, and wind storms. Manmade disasters can be intentional, such as terrorism or a mass shooting, or they can be unintentional and caused by human error, such as aviation accidents, industrial hazards, and industrial collapses.
Disasters can lead to many adversities for children and families, including displacement, loss of home and personal property, changes in school, economic hardship, loss of community and social supports, and even the injury and death of loved ones.
Disaster impacts are not equitable, and communities of color and under-resourced communities tend to be disproportionately affected. NEW DAY recognizes that a focus on reducing disparities and providing culturally responsive care must be at the center of mental health supports for disaster-affected youth.
NEW DAY trains those who work with kids in youth disaster mental health.
Disasters are highly destructive events that disrupt and overwhelm entire communities at once
Such events include:
- Hurricanes
- Earthquakes
- Mass Shootings
- Wildfires
- Floods
- Tornadoes
- Terrorist Attacks
- Chemical Spills
- Pandemic outbreaks
- Civil Unrest
among many other…
Kids and Teens are amongst the most vulnerable.
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