Houston Project Draws Out Traumatized Kids

Mental health specialists working with children who fled Hurricane Katrina and then endured the horrors of the Superdome say some of the children will suffer post-traumatic stress disorders much like soldiers back from a battlefield.

Harris County, Texas, officials are ramping up efforts to provide counseling for the children and their equally traumatized parents.

But a group of local women, working independently of any government or Red Cross effort, has started its own project to help children express what they’ve experienced.

Four women who have volunteered to watch children at Houston’s Reliant Center shelter to give parents a break are encouraging children to draw pictures to vent their emotions, hoping that will help avoid problems later. The women call the art effort Katrina’s Kids Project.

Ashley Bryan said she was stunned by the stories of survival the children told and the graphic pictures they drew.

“Maybe their parents are still so stressed and grieving that maybe they haven’t had time to listen to their kids,” Bryan said. “The kids are almost desperate to talk about what they did. It seems very therapeutic for them, a true emotional release.”

The children’s pictures are full of rain clouds, helicopters with rescue baskets, overturned cars, stick figures described as frightened, and dark images of the Superdome.

Marlon, 11, depicts the Superdome and two figures, one identified as “Hungry People,” the other as “Scared People.” A drawing by Elisa, 13, shows the Superdome with the captions “We need food and water” and “Please let us go.”

Before drawing, many children tell about the horrors of being trapped inside the Superdome. A common theme, Bryan said, is protection: that their mother protected them against “bad people” at the Superdome, or that they protected her.

“It’s incredible how desperate they are to talk about bravery at the Superdome,” Bryan said.

One child told of being trapped in the family home as the water got higher, holding onto her mother’s hand until the mother slipped under the water and disappeared.

The child’s picture was of heaven, with a note to her mother: “I’ll see you in the white clouds.”

Some of the pictures can be seen at the project website, www.katrinaskidsproject.org.

Bryan, Johna DiMuzio, Carol Gunn and Janine Schueppert have collected more than 650 drawings from the children. Sitting in a corner of Reliant Arena, where about 1,500 evacuees are still living, they listen to the children tell their stories and then invite them to make a drawing.

The motto of Katrina’s Kids Project is “Hope ... one crayon at a time.” None of the founding women has any background in child psychology except the expertise that comes with being parents. “We’re just moms,” Schueppert said.

If the images of the Superdome are threatening, those of Texas, where the families fled, are bright. Texas is seen as a sunny sanctuary in many of the pictures. A drawing by 12-year-old Elisha is titled “Beautiful day in Texas.”

Katrina’s Kids Project is using the children’s artwork for a quilt -- sewn by adult evacuees -- as well as on T-shirts, a calendar, a tote bag and postcards sold on the project’s website. Profits from the merchandise are to help children affected by the hurricane.

As the children enter their third week in shelters, the experience of Katrina and the Superdome has submerged but not disappeared.

“On the surface the kids seem happy and able to cope day to day,” Schueppert said. “But if you give them a chance, they open their hearts and pour out their feelings.”