2011 Van Earthquake evaluation of psychosocial support post-secondary education for students (The case of Erciş)

Earthquake fact which our country faces; emphasizes importance of earthquakes and clear understanding of its damages to people. Elimination of damages is possible by learning the art of living with earthquake. For that purpose; National Earthquake Strategy and Action Plans (NESAP), urban transformation projects aims to reduce risks of earthquakes. Moreover, by conducting earthquake exercise drills in all schools the Ministry of Education is working to teach students to live with earthquakes. In addition to these efforts, search and rescue teams were formed in all public institutions and they were provided with relevant training programs. After the Marmara Earthquake in 1999 and the Van Earthquake in 2011, research and rescue teams were qualitatively not adequate despite the presence of an increase in the number. More importantly, psychosocial support efforts after the earthquakes were conducted at tent and container centres The survey was conducted on 650 students with the purpose of measuring the effects of psycho-social support efforts for secondary school age earthquake victims at Van Erciş. The survey data were analysed by means of SPSS 15.0 statistical software. As the result of this research, we come to a conclusion that support efforts were qualitatively and quantitatively insufficient since secondary school students at Ercis have high instability rate regarding the effects of psycho-social support efforts and support efforts didn?t cause positive changes on students. Keywords: Natural Disasters, 2011 Van Earthquake, Psychosocial Support,