From traumatic injuries to natural disasters to violent incidents and more, first responders respond to hundreds of emergency events involving children every day.  

“Over nine million children in the United States receive emergency medical care for unintentional injuries annually,” said Dr. Lindsey Murphy, assistant professor of child life studies at Missouri State University.  

She conducted a research project to examine how first responders perceive and manage children’s reactions during emergencies. 

The goal was to dig deeper into first responders’ experiences with children during emergencies and their roles in meeting children’s psychosocial needs, as well as identify gaps in services to support these needs.  

With help from her colleague Dr. Elizabeth King, associate professor of child and family development, the article titled “The Lived Experiences of First Responders During Emergency Events Involving Children: Child Reactions, First Responder Roles, and Additional Needs” was published in The Journal of Child Life in December 2024. 

“The role of a first responder is sustaining life and supporting safety,” Murphy said. “The first responders I interviewed mentioned how helpful support would be, since they can’t always prioritize the patient and child’s needs.” 

Gaining insight 

Murphy is a co-founder of the Child Life Disaster Relief, a national nonprofit that provides necessary care to children during emergencies.  

“My biggest motivation with trauma disaster relief was focusing on how we get to these disasters sooner,” she said. “We must be in the community for day-to-day events to be of service in a big crisis. Getting there sooner means we could help children and families in smaller events like car accidents, fires and instances of domestic violence.” 

Murphy is a certified child life specialist who practiced primarily in a hospital setting but had never worked on the scenes of emergencies. She chose to interview eight first responders to gain their insights. 

“I’ve always found myself focused on the community and emergency settings,” she said. “But I haven’t been on the scene of thousands of emergency events with children, so I wanted to learn from the experts.” 

She emphasized laying groundwork and building trust with research participants when researching a difficult topic. 

“I spent a lot of time building rapport with the responders prior to engaging in these interviews,” she said. “Part of the research was understanding first responder culture in advance and letting them share in their own environment.” 

Through the interviews, Murphy found answers about child reactions to be different from her expectations. 

“I was expecting a lot of crying, screaming, upset children,” she said. “What I learned is children have a lot of other reactions, even non-reactions. The children reacted based on their everyday life experiences.” 

Adding support 

Murphy’s research showed first responders tried their best to support children.  

“A lot of the first responders mitigated trauma without fully realizing it by using tactics such as distraction,” she said. “They modeled behaviors they learned from parents, uncles and other people they knew who had children.” 

Those first responders with children of their own would often be the go-to person for helping children in need.  

But the first responders revealed gaps existed in their education and training for working with children. They also mentioned the need for trained and professional support for children and families like child life specialists. 

When it comes to training for first responders, Murphy proposes a program that is based on case studies.  

“I’m a realist. I understand that webinars and PowerPoints may not be the most effective way to reach them,” she said. “In an ideal world, a child life specialist would come in every month and discuss a case the team had worked on. They could discuss what went right and what they could improve on.” 

Although Murphy’s research is about first responders, she notes civilians also have a duty to support children.  

“We could each be the first one on the scene, someday,” she said. “Children experience the world through their eyes. We all can do the work to look out for our most vulnerable.” 

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