Spirituality and Faith-Based Interventions: Pathways to Disaster Resilience for African American Hurricane Katrina Survivors

Abstract

Research has shown that spirituality and religion are important sources of resilience and coping in adversity such as disasters, particularly for African Americans. In addition, churches and faith-based service providers are key actors in disaster relief and recovery. After Hurricane Katrina, research on survivors has focused little on the role of spirituality and religion in their recovery. This case study illustrates that even without soliciting it, survivors who evacuated to a host city talked about the importance of spirituality and religion in their recovery process. Further, interviews and observations with local service providers illustrate that few practitioners utilized spirituality or religion as a resource and that coordination between faith-based and secular service providers was problematic. Our research highlights a neglected area of cultural competence for those providing services to Katrina survivors. We discuss the implications for social work policy and practice.

Keywords:

• African Americans
• disasters
• faith-based organizations
• Hurricane Katrina
• resilience
• spirituality