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They imagine the worst because they live in China, where a devastating earthquake hit last month, and they know they will soon face the survivors.
A world away in Chester, psychologists and social workers watch the macabre scenes in an effort to teach their counterparts in China how to deal with the psychological rubble of a nation that lost nearly 70,000 lives and five million homes on May 12.
For many who survived, they lost something that rescue workers didn't know how to provide - hope.
Now, a group of Widener University professors is using video-conferencing to train faculty at East China Normal University in Shanghai to teach psychological first aid.
Next week, the Chinese participants will travel to Chongqing, a city that has accepted 5,000 to 6,000 earthquake survivors at its hospitals. There, they will teach what they've learned to nurses, social-work professionals and government officials.
The mental-health infrastructure in China is still in its infancy, a result of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, said Paula Silver, director of Widener's Center for Social Work Education.
Beginning in the mid 1960s, Mao launched a campaign to purge the country of old ideas and customs. Books and art were destroyed, writers and artists were persecuted, and intellectuals were sent to work at hard labor in rural areas.
"Any kind of mental-health interventions were dismantled during the Cultural Revolution," Silver said. "It wasn't until the late '80s they began to appear again in a university setting."
Silver was one of several Widener students and faculty visiting China's Chongqing Technology and Business University when the earthquake struck. With the quake's epicenter just 300 miles away, Silver wanted to help.
So, when she was approached about training Chinese intellectuals who would in turn train first-response workers, she didn't hesitate. Her Widener colleagues also accepted the challenge.
"It falls under the umbrella term of a calling," said Jenny Wyatt, assistant director for social-work education. "If there's anything we can do that's of paramount importance to them, this is it."
At 7 a.m. Wednesday, Silver, Wyatt and a half-dozen of their colleagues sat down for one of several sessions in front of a small video camera and a TV screen.
"Ni hao!" they said - "Hello" in Mandarin Chinese.
It was 7 p.m. in Shanghai, and the 30 participants on that side of the world returned the greeting with smiles.
But the discussion soon turned to suicide and how to deal with families who've experienced trauma, both situations that they know they'll have to deal with in the wake of the disaster.
Wyatt spoke of key words and emotions to look for when dealing with someone who may be suicidal. She spoke of changing family patterns in the face of disaster.
Her voice was delayed about two seconds across the continents, but she spoke slowly, clearly and with a compassion that carried miles.
"In a respectful way, we are teachers to show them different ways they may be able to get through this easier," she said.
During a previous session, when the Americans role-played, they did their scenes as responders dealing with Chinese earthquake victims, Silver said. But the students asked that their teachers instead play out scenes as if they were victims of American disasters.
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