Week 2 Assignment Phases of Disaster Response

The purpose of this assignment is to examine the psychological phases of disaster response and how these are uniquely experienced by affected individuals and communities. Through the course materials, we have learned that psychologically processing disaster events generally follows a predictable set of phases. Although this is not always the case, these phases are the norm versus the exception in disaster behavioral responses.

For this assignment, briefly explain the five commonly accepted psychological phases of disaster responses. As a reminder, these include (1) the pre-disaster phase, (2) the hero phase, (3) the honeymoon phase, (4) the disillusionment phase, and (5) the reconstruction phase.
After providing a review of the phases noted above, examine individual and community responses to a specific historical disaster event of your choice, provide a summary of the psychological phases of disaster response displayed in the example.
Explain, with detail, how the selected phase(s) is appropriate to describe the observed behavior(s) from the example.
Close your work with a discussion of the role of cultural competence during any of the phases of psychological disaster response and how such awareness might affect the actions of behavioral health professionals as psychological first aid (PFA) is implemented.
Work should be submitted in a Word document (doc. or docx.) or other compatible word processing document (.rtf), and be 5 to 6 pages in length, excluding the required title and reference page.

Scholarly sources should be cited both in-text 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.

Submissions should be formatted per APA standards. Headers are required throughout the submission. For assistance and resources on APA formatting style, contact the APUS library and/or the APUS writing center.

The basic parts of a paper should also be included; these are the introduction section, with a precise thesis statement, the body of the paper with clear, discernable headings formatted to APA style levels of heading where appropriate, and a conclusion that restates the argument and summarizes the major points of the entire paper.