Psychology of Disaster Course Project
Many topics of interest and importance are covered during the course; Week 7, especially, provides an opportunity to explore several, often overlooked topics that are critical to our understanding in the discussion of the psychology of disaster. For your course project, you are tasked with selecting one of the following areas, presented during week seven of the course, and examining a disaster event, using the selected area as the foundation of your work. The areas from which you may select include:
- Secondary Traumatic Stress (Effects of disasters on first responders/BH providers)
- Environmental Vulnerabilities and Considerations
- Critical Infrastructure Failures
- Disaster in School Environments
- In a 10 to 15 slide PowerPoint presentation, identify a recent disaster event (within the most recent 10 years), providing a description of the major events of the disaster leading up to, during, and after the event, to the extent possible.
- Incorporating the selected area above, discuss, with detail and support, how the area is illustrated in the disaster event.
- Explore how the selected element influenced disaster response efforts.
- Provide details of the ways in which these influences were observed.
- Discuss any barriers presented by the selected element in providing effectual behavioral health interventions.
- Prepare a plan describing how the challenges experienced might be more effectively navigated using the principles of disaster behavioral health learned throughout the course.
- Share the steps and resources you would deploy to overcome or avoid the challenges faced in the selected element.
- Ensure the plan presented is based upon evidenced based practices established in the field as effective in addressing psychological needs in disaster settings.
In developing your work, be sure to rely upon academic, scholarly sources to support the definitions and recommendations provided. Scholarly sources should be cited both in-text (speakers notes) and on the reference page of the submission. A minimum of five academic, scholarly sources are required to be cited in the work, 3 of which must be peer-reviewed journal articles. Course materials may not be used to meet the scholarly source requirement.
- Work should be submitted in a PowerPoint file and be 10 to 15 slides in length, excluding the required title slide and separate reference slide. You should ensure your PPT meets the following criteria in addition to covering the topics above:
- The slides should contain mostly bullet point data related to the requirements expected in the instructions above.
- Information on slides (including the reference slide) should be easily readable with an appropriate font size (do not cram all the information onto one slide and shrink the font).
- Formatting should be consistent throughout the submission, this includes font, bullets, spacing, alignment, pictures, etc.
- A background appropriate to the topic should be used on all slides and the background should be appropriate for the font (style, size, color, etc.), bullets, and graphics you have chosen.
- Pictures and graphics (appropriate to the overall topic and the slide itself) should be included throughout the submission to keep the presentation interesting and add an additional dimension to the presentation, a good rule is a picture every other slide at least.
- A title slide should be included with the same information that would be found on an APA formatted paper cover sheet.
- All detailed explanations should be in the speakers notes only. Use of comments or any other method of adding additional information is not allowed.
- Detailed speaker notes should accompany each slide with in-text citations. Your speakers notes should equal at least a 5-6 page APA formatted paper to ensure you have covered the topic thoroughly.
Submissions should be formatted per APA standards. For assistance and resources on APA formatting style, contact the APUS library and/or the APUS writing center. Be sure to review the rubric and the announcements before beginning and submitting your assignment.
