Dr. Betty Lai | Source | Associate Professor, Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology at Bo...
Dr. Betty Lai
Betty Lai is a child psychologist and disaster researcher. Her research focuses on how children and families respond to disasters and other traumatic stressors. Her recent work has focused on children's mental health symptoms, physical health symptoms, and school functioning following large scale disasters.
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Boston College
Associate Professor, Counseling, Developmental & Educational Psychology
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Home After Fire: A New Housing Model Aims to Give Kids Stability
When the Almeda Fire hit southern Oregon on Labor Day weekend just over a year ago, Christy Brooks was on her way home from her daughters’ school after picking up books and a computer in preparation for the coming year. The air was smoky and smelled burnt, but Brooks doesn’t remember feeling overly concerned. She […]
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Project:Camp helps children cope with trauma, one natural disaster at a time
"They show up at the beginning of the day quiet and reserved, and at the end of the day it’s actually hard to peel them away," the executive director said.
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America’s mental health moment is finally here
There’s a mental health moment in America, and athletes are leading the way.
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More people are raising these issues and are raising them earlier. Ten years ago, we really had to make the case that we should be thinking about mental health outcomes for kids after disasters.
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We know that kids are one of the most vulnerable populations when they experience natural disasters. They really depend on adults to help them through these situations, but they also have fewer experiences to make sense of what it means when your world is turned upside down.
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When you’re a child that is from a more vulnerable or marginalized group, you’re at higher risk of experiencing recovery stressors. So those are things like not being able to go back to school, missing more school days, having to move multiple times.
