California School Counselor - Fall 2008 - (Page 14)

The Key Is Prevention Every element of response to a crisis should include focus on measures that will help prevent a future crisis. Often people view crisis response as reactive, occurring after the event. But what can be very helpful and revealing is to look at the ways a response can play a critical role in prevention. School crisis response is personality driven. If someone in the school takes a real interest in doing it well, that person tends to keep the ball rolling. We all have more to do than we can get done even without crisis being on our plates. So if we can work toward crisis response becoming an unquestioned part of school culture, many positive things happen. Everyone begins to own a piece, which takes the load oﬀ one person (the school counselor) and shares it among the staﬀ. When terriﬁc plans, inservicing, practice and response have occurred over a period of years, the culture of the school supports the continuance of eﬀective measures, even in the event that the “driving force” leaves the district. We also know that one of the reasons there were no lawsuits at the Thurston shooting had to do with the fact that their team was a collaborative team; one team shared by having all buildings in an entire county send people to a countywide education service agency that coordinated the training and mobilizing of the team. In their case, the team had mobilized many times each year for about 15 years before they had “the big one.” What allows us to get through overwhelming events on an even keel has everything to do with more than planning, more than prevention, more than drills, but true practice, by using the smaller crises to mobilize teams to iron out the kinks in their plans when the stakes aren’t so high. Th at, and having a team of more than 150 members countywide that can be mobilized with one call from the site in crisis, were key features in their eﬀectiveness. Finally, what is clear in terms of responding to major events is that when a life-threatening event occurs, there is no time to consult our plan or manuals. Manuals are essential in helping us prepare, but we must have such thorough knowledge of our response plans that it isn’t necessary to open the book other than to get the skeletons for creating meeting agendas, press releases, letters home, etc. Immediate response is critical (the shooting of 26 students at Thurston High School occurred in less than two minutes) so practice is essential. That doesn’t mean involving students (which tends to put out the message that kids aren’t safe in school, when actually, more than 300 kids die of a gunshot wound outside of school for every one that dies from gun-related incidents in school), but rather heavily involving staﬀ on inservice days to do new and unique drills, remembering that kids really are safer in school than almost anywhere else. Consider the overall concept of crisis response; prevention, planning, materials, inservicing, and using smaller events for perfecting skills are all critical components. It is easy to think “it won’t happen here,” but in reality, the question is not “if,” but “when.” Administrators often saddle counselors with the responsibility of responding to crisis. Adept use of staﬀ professional development and encouraging a culture of shared responsibility for school climate can make a huge diﬀerence. It is all about working smarter, not working harder. ■ Please visit our Web site for free downloadables (www.cmionline.org) to help with staﬀ inservicing guidelines for use when responding, sending letters home, dealing with national events and much more. If you’d like to receive guidelines for using national crises as teachable moments, sign up on our “contacts” page for newsletters and alerts. When something happens, you’ll have guidelines for administrators, teachers, counselors and parents in your e-mail inbox by the morning after the event. Let us know what would be helpful. Our goal is to be here for you! Cheri Lovre, director, Crisis Management Institute, has responded to school crises for over 30 years, including events ranging from school shootings, a machete attack in a kindergarten classroom, the tsunami in Sri Lanka, suicide clusters and much more. She donates her time in responding to disasters, and provides training for teams, professional development, online courses, materials and much more to help you prevent, mitigate, respond, recover and followup from major incidents. Cheri was a keynote speaker at the 2008 ASCA Conference in Atlanta. Her Web site is www.cmionline.org. Report from the Commission I am pleased to report that on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008 the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) directed the CTC staﬀ to explore four major topic areas pertaining to the Administrative Service Credential authorization. One of the topic areas the Commission will be examining is whether the standards for administrator training adequately convey enough background knowledge for administrators to eﬀectively address the range of support services provided in the schools. In particular, 14 the committee will be looking into how administrators are prepared to provide leadership in meeting the needs of English learners and special education students, as well as leadership in the provision and conduct of school pupil personnel services. CASC is pleased at the action the CTC took and looks forward to working with the Commission on addressing these very important and timely issues! Loretta Whitson, reporting as CTC Commissioner NonAdministrative Service Credential representative The California School Counselor | fall 2008 r http://www.cmionline.org http://www.cmionline.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of California School Counselor - Fall 2008

California School Counselor - Fall 2008 Contents Presidential Perspectives Jackie's Jottings Executive Director's Report Pics, Clicks and Technics Calendar Index to Advertisers Prevention is Key in Crisis Response High Schools Partner with Cash for College to Boost Cal Grant Awards CASC Southern California Conference and Research Summit II Reflection 2008 WACAC Annual Spring Conference H.B. McDaniel Foundation Awards Announced 2008 Delegate Assembly 2008-2009 School Counseling Program Grant Recipients Named Solution Tree Outsert

California School Counselor - Fall 2008

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