Child development and family mental health in war and military violence: The Palestinian experience

has lasted for more than three generations and it provides a sad example of accumulation of military violence, animosity and revenge. Palestinian territories, including Gaza, have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. This has affected the people’s lives from cradle to grave. In addition to material losses, economic disaster and lack of independence, the unsolved military conflict heavily burdens mental health and child development. Like in other contemporary military conflicts, Palestinian children and adolescents are witnessing atrocities and humiliation and have chosen actively to participate in the national resistance and military confrontations. For parents, it is painful and shameful to see their children suffering and to realize their own inability to protect them from insecurity, destruction and horrors. Establishing the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) in 1990 was an attempt to transfer this pain into activity and empowerment. The philosophy is that paying attention to mental health is crucial in adverse and dangerous conditions, both in healing and preventing psychopathology and encouraging resilience. On political level, good mental health is considered preconditions for peace and human rights, which the GCMHP also actively promotes. The main activities of the GCMHP are clinical and counseling work covering all the domains of life and the whole area of Gaza and providing training for professional mental health specialization. The activities are based on a community approach that entails active cooperation with schools, nurseries and survivor organizations and uncovering and encouraging family and community resources. The purpose of our research is to serve the interventions and preventive activities among traumatized families and children, and among victims of human right abuse.We wish to increase understanding of child development in general and in the life-endangering conditions in Gaza in particular. We are convinced that community mental health services can benefit from the methodological innovations, scientific findings, and evidence-based material. Many of our research questions originate from worried parents and teachers, who wanted to know, for instance, whether playing war and funerals are detrimental or healing, and how to prevent children’s aggressive behavior. Accordingly we have studied the risk and protective factors in child development to enhance effective preventive interventions and improve counseling parents and teachers. In this article we describe the main findings of our research that began during the First Intifada (1986–1993), continued International Journal of Behavioral Development 2008, 32 (4), 306–317