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Abstract Disasters are unpredictable events that kill and affect negatively people life, destroy properties and disrupt environment. Disasters also vary in terms of the extent of their effects. Individuals can react with the same disaster in different ways, depending on their age, cultural background, health status, social support structure, and general ability to adapt to disasters. The effects of disasters on schools can be disruptive. Because the children are unable to act on their own in such situations, in addition to their inability to adapt to what is caused by disasters and painful observations that may negatively affect their lives in the near and long term. Education for disaster management is a trans-disciplinary action aimed to developing knowledge, skills and attitudes at all levels. Considering that the majority of children have much more close contact with the teachers in schools more than the health team members. Therefore the primary school teachers are the best channel to activate and empower children for active health education and action for health; so teachers must be aware of disaster management in schools and gain knowledge and implement safety practices in school environment. This strategy has proved its long term efficiency. School children and their teachers are some of the most receptive group to disaster management education and training. These children, in turn share this valuable education with family and community. In Syria, there is an urgent need to implement disaster management programs in schools. The country in a multi-faceted disaster for more than seven years. The impact on the education sector has been very bad. Thousands of schools have been destroyed, hundreds of students have been killed and more than 2 million have been out of schools. In addition to, there is a lack of programs related to dealing with disasters. so, this study was implemented. School safety is very important concern. Every school and community must take it seriously and strive continuously to achieve the highest safety in all schools. Every school is unique by virtue of its teachers, students, location and culture. Teacher’s role is very important in mitigating the hazards and disasters in schools. The teacher who is aware of disasters and its management can improve thier practices successfully. Aims of the present study are to: Assess the actual performance of the primary school teachers of Al Malikeyeh regarding disaster management. In addition to develop and implement training program about disaster management and to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the training program on the performance of primary school teachers in Al Malikeyeh regarding disaster management. A quasi experimental designed was used to conduct this study. The studied sample in the current research composed from 78 primary school teachers they were selected randomly from 6 schools in Al- Malikeyeh sub-district, first three were selected for the study group and the other three representing the control group. Thirteen teachers were chosen from each school. Tools for data collection: Two tools was used to collect the required data for the study Tool (I): Teacher’s knowledge and practice about disaster management structured interview questionnaire: This tool was developed by the researcher based on literature review, it consisted of three parts: Part I- socio demographic characteristics It included the following data such as name, age, sex, degree of education, years of teaching experience, previously exposed to actual disaster, attended previous program related to disasters. Part II- knowledge of teachers about disaster management, it included basic concepts of disaster management. Part III- practice of the teachers in relation to the disaster management. Tool (2): Observation checklist of school disaster management plan It was developed by the department of education and early childhood development, State Government of Victoria, Australia in August 2013. it includes two parts: Part A: school name, district, number of students, average per class, aspects of physical school environment (building, playground, stairs, classrooms, drinking water, ventilation, food, traffic and transport. etc……. Part B: Emergency management plan (EMP) Checklist. - Tools were tested for validity and reliability - Content validity of the study tools was tested by exposing it to a group of experts‘ comments (jury) 5 experts, internal consistency reliability (coefficient alpha) was applied to test reliability of tool (I), it was 0.81. - Approval of the director of Education Directorate in Al-Hasaka governorate was obtained, the director of each school was informed about the date & time of data collection to obtain their consent. - A Pilot study was carried out on a sample of (7) primary school teachers, those teachers not included in the study sample. Actual field work; It consisted of four phases: 1- The preparatory assessment phase: - Pretest for both study and control groups were conducted using (tool I) to assess the knowledge and practice of primary school teachers regarding disaster management for all the study subjects. 2- Developmental phase: The program was developed and its steps and methodology was planned to study group. It has overall objectives as well as set of specific objectives for each of the following 6 sessions; - The first session included Introduction to Disaster and its management: - The second session covered elements of disaster management and it procedures - The third session contained: basics of evacuation and search - The fourth session included the First aid procedures for the most - The fifth session discussed the safety procedures for the school and the community’s role in disaster management. - The sixth session: practical application about disaster management aspects. 3- Implementation phase: - The training program was carried out in a meeting room or class room according to availability to encompass a group of 13 teachers. - The program was implemented to the study group in the form of six sessions according to their available time with range one session per two weeks for each group. The session took two hours with a break for 10 minutes. - The researcher used different teaching methods as demonstration and discussion, examples, brain storming, teaching aids as data show and visual materials, handout and role playing. 4- Evaluation phase: Evaluation was conducted immediately post and three month after program for both study and control groups to determine the effect of the program on the knowledge and practice of primary school teachers by using teacher’s knowledge and practice about disaster management structured interview questionnaire (tool I). Data was collected by the researcher then coded, fed to PC and analyzed; the SPSS (version 20) was used. Appropriate descriptive and analytical statistics were carried out. The main results yielded by this study were: I- Socio-demographic characters of teachers The age of the studied group ranged between 23 and 53 years with a Mean of age 32.30±7.15 while in the control group ranged between 24 and 51 years with a Mean of age 31.87±6.46 years. Additionally more than half of studied group (56.4 %) was females, while the percentage of females in control group was (46.2%). For income level the biggest percent of studied group were not enough (79.5%), and also in control group (82.1%). about half of control group (48.7%) had University degree while the percentage were (43.6%) in studied group, while (43.6%) of the teachers in the studied group had diploma and (38.5 %) in control group in addition to (12.8%) of both groups had high diploma. Less than half (43.6%) in studied group had 6 to 10 years as teaching experience while (38.5%) in control group. More than half (53.8%) of teachers witness disaster previously in studied group and (51.3%) in control group. Less than quarter (23.1%) of control group witnessed shooting, while the percentages were (15.4%) in study group, whereas (15.4%) of studied group witness bombing and (23.1%) in control group. More than half of studied and control groups (56.4%, 59.0%) did not attend training. about (30.8%) of studied group attended training about first aid, while (15.3%) in control group. II- Assess knowledge and practice of primary school teachers at pre-program More than one third of teachers in the study and control groups (35.8%, 40.9% respectively) had good knowledge about disaster management. More than two quarters of teachers in the study and control groups (69.2%, 79.5% respectively) had unsatisfactory practice regarding disaster management. III- The effect of implementing a training program on school teacher’s performance: - Regarding teacher s knowledge about disaster management; there a statistical significant deference of change of the total score in study group was funded between pre, post and three months after program (Z= 17.25, P = 0.001). While, no significant deference of change of the total score in control group was founded between pre, post and three months after program within control group (Z = 2.03, P = 0.107). - a statistical significant improvement in the study group were found about all knowledge’ aspects scores which include causes and nature of disasters, effects of disasters, disaster risk identification and assessment, disaster risk reduction, preparedness, response-rescue and relief, and first Aid skills and safety on the immediate post program and three months after program, as well as no statistical significant improvement in the study group founded about all knowledge’ aspects scores. - The training program caused a statistical significant (Z=18.9, P=001) improvement about disaster management practice; but this effect was not seen in control group (Z= 3.01, P=0.065). - a statistical significant improvement in the study group was found about all practice’ aspects scores which include: evacuation, search and rescue, basic selected first aid skills, fire safety, security measures and information disseminating on the immediate post program and three months after program. As well as no statistical significant improvement in the study group founded about all practice’ aspects scores. Summary 80 IV- Relationship between socio-demographic characteristics of study subjects and knowledge & practice mean difference. no statistical significant associations between teacher’s socio-demographic characteristics expect age group and knowledge mean score in the both groups during study three stages, while found statistical significant relations between knowledge and age groups score (more knowledge score) in study (P =0.01, P=0.03, P=0.045 respectively) and control (p= 0.048, p=0.032 and 0.021 respectively).groups during period of program . No statistical significant associations between socio-demographic characteristics and mean deference of practice of school teachers in the study and control groups during different period of program. V- Relation between knowledge and practice in study group. The finding of current study revealed that there were statistically significant positive correlation between knowledge and practice for the study group throughout the study period. According to the previous conclusion, the following recommendations were suggested: 1. Develop comprehensive standardized national preventive strategies for achieved safety measures in the schools. 2. Ensure structural integrity of school buildings, use safe building materials, and health protective renovation procedures. 3. Government must begin universal access to basic education about disaster management. 4. Establish a comprehensive plan for disaster preparedness, strengthening capacities for disaster risk reduction and developing skills for making communities are ready to deal with crises at any time. 5. Revise curricular to include all recent information on disaster management in the schools so that students will prepare for future disasters. 6. Each school must prepare their own School Disaster Management Plan and must be updated on regular basis. 7. Include community partners such as local government, police department, fire department and public health agencies in planning. 8. Identify and obtain equipments for mitigate and respond to emergencies 9. School authority should put on show all the important telephone numbers as ambulance, fire, polices etc. at prominent places of the school Summary 81 10. Training programs and workshops about disaster issues should be organized for the school teachers and key teams on regular basis by used a variety of educational methods e.g. video learning, on line learning, games etc. 11. Encourage student to share in the committee as Red Crescent and allow them to express their suggestion. 12. Awareness campaigns about disaster management issues should be implementing with employing mass and social media technologies. 13. Similar study can be conducted among school students, college students, and. |