No organization, no health care system and no individual could have been fully prepared for the devastation and chaos that followed the attacks of September 11. But like many others, the New York staff of the Children's Health Fund responded.
Within hours of the attack on the World Trade Center, two CHF mobile medical units were dispatched to lower Manhattan, bringing medical supplies, personnel and technical assistance to Ground Zero and participating in triage efforts hours after the towers collapsed. Our teams helped set up the respiratory and crisis support units. Subsequently, CHF participated in the emergency triage areas at Chelsea Piers and also provided bilingual counseling and case management services.
Concerned about the lack of planning for the possibility of children being injured by weapons of mass destruction, The Children's Health Fund brought information and expertise to the federal legislative process, ensuring that pediatric concerns and perspectives were appropriately included in the federal bioterrorism legislation.
CHF was also concerned about how children and families were coping with the reality of these attacks and a very uncertain future with respect to ongoing threats. Working closely with the Marist Institute, CHF has been actively engaged in surveying the impact on families in the metropolitan area and nationally. The CHF/Marist Institute polls were the first to document and show how the events of September 11 affected children and families throughout the city, not just in lower Manhattan. These polls were also the first to show that low-income children were the most vulnerable to psychological trauma following the terror attacks.
The Community Support Project of CHF has been providing ongoing counseling and training of caretakers on mobile units and via outreach teams in communities throughout New York. For the families who live in neighborhoods already suffering from severe shortages of health care and support services, the events of September 11 have simply exacerbated an already terrible crisis of poor access to needed care. The Community Support Project was also one of the primary sources of counseling and support services following the November 2001 crash of Flight 587 bound for the Dominican Republic. Community Support Project staff worked closely with the Red Cross on this effort, and they were among the few counselors who were able to provide services in Spanish.
Dealing with the aftermath of terrorism and helping to ensure that we are as prepared as possible to prevent or manage the consequences of such acts in the future, particularly for children and families already traumatized by poverty and lack of resources has become part of the new, expanded agenda of The Children's Health Fund.
CHF President and Co-founder
Dr. Redlener is the first director of this new center created in 2003 by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. The Center is an expansion of the school's existing disaster preparedness program, which Dr. Redlener has been deeply involved in as associate dean for Public Health and Disaster Preparedness. The National Center acts as a resource and training ground for public health emergency preparedness. With CHF's prominent role in the Center, a key goal of its efforts are to identify and provide for the physical, social and psychological needs of children in responding to terrorism.
With the help of generous grants from corporations and foundations, CHF responded quickly after 9-11 to ensure our children and families had the support they needed. The expertise we gained we are now sharing in multiple ways to educate health professionals and inform important legislation. Our efforts and milestones:
