Crossing the bridge of hope with children in omagh

Abstract This paper describes a community response to a major disaster. In this instance the disaster was the Omagh Bomb of the 15th August 1998. This event was the single most severe in terms of loss of lives and injuries throughout the course of the troubles of the past thirty years. The response of the local health care trust was to acknowledge in a symbolic and real way the extent of the tragedy. This paper describes the origins and evolution of this response and describes more specifically the therapeutic work of the team with children and young people over the past two years.