Pediatrics – Good Grief Program

Services

General Training Programs – Workshop II: Training a Crisis Team

Although many schools can point to a crisis plan that is available for implementation at the time of crisis, several years of experience training teams suggests that most plans contain the crisis but stop short of assisting students and faculty with the psychological issues that confront them at the time of loss.

The crisis team training will address the how, what, when and why of school crisis management. The training is lively, interactive and provides the team with an opportunity to learn and interact together, a prerequisite for working together in a stressful crisis.

A sampling of the questions we will address together:

• What constitutes a "crisis"?
  
  
• How and when do you inform students of a death?
  
  
• In what ways are the concerns different if the death is anticipated, unanticipated, caused by suicide, AIDS, the result of a murder, an outcome of family violence or witnessed by other students?
  
  
• What do you do if the community has information that the family is unwilling to reveal?
  
  
• How do you identify which students and faculty are more at risk?
  
  
• How do you know if you are doing enough?
  
  
• How do you involve parents?
  
  
• What commemoration policy is appropriate, especially if the death was a suicide?
  
  
• How do you assist the school community in "going on"?
  
  
• How do you effectively deal with the media?

The issues are many and complex; the crisis action plan must address each issue completely and specifically. At the end of the training, you will have completed the Good Grief Crisis Protocol, a working document.