DR. MARK LERNER

Empowering People Through Challenging Times

"NYSUT would like to see this training on school violence and 

trauma prevention available throughout the state."

1. New York State United Teachers
   

"Dr. Lerner provided insight in a straightforward, no nonsense, and common sense approach that thoroughly engaged the audience of professionals. I highly recommend Dr. Lerner as it is clear that he has a profound commitment to helping survivors and professionals deal with trauma on all levels. Dr. Lerner can assist those individuals and institutions that want to be proactive instead of reactive to issues surrounding trauma - big and small."

Mary Pat Angelini
Executive Director & CEO
Prevention|first

School and university administrators are charged with the responsibility of meeting the unique needs of all members of the educational family. In cases where a traumatic event or events have impacted a school or university family, efforts must be made to address the needs of those who are affected. Dr. Lerner is frequently called upon as a consultant to school and university administrators who seek guidance in addressing these sensitive matters. Dr. Lerner has consulted in national and international cases involving suicide, mass homicide, fatal accidents, drownings, sexual molestation, “hit lists” and threatening graffiti, bullying and natural disasters.  

School CRISIS

Be Prepared. Be Responsive

From professional development workshops to Superintendent's Conference days, these on-site dynamic presentations and workshops will empower all members of the school family with practical knowledge and skills to identify and address the immediate needs of troubled students. Dr. Mark Lerner, author of A Practical Guide for Crisis Response in Our Schools, will discuss the impact of traumatic events on individuals and the school community. He will:

1. •offer strategies to potentially prevent violent school-based tragedies
   

2. •help educators to identify students who may be at greatest risk and know when to refer to support staff
   

3. •review protocol for managing crisis situations, and finally
   

4. •discuss practical strategies for addressing the emergent needs of students during times of crisis.
   

Being proactive, we can address the needs of vulnerable students early on, keep people functioning, mitigate ongoing emotional suffering and maintain the educational process.

University CRISIS

Be Prepared. Be Responsive

With the changing spirit of our times, colleges and universities across our nation have been charged with the responsibility of developing crisis management plans. These plans typically focus on the structure of crisis response - in the aftermath of a tragedy. For example, they address such issues as who will serve as members of the Crisis Response Team? What are the specific roles of team members? And, how will information be shared with the university family?

Although these structured plans have been developed and implemented by many educational institutions, little attention has been given to the process of university crisis response. For example, once students and/or staff have been assembled in a dormitory lounge, library conference room or other supportive/counseling venue, what is done to help them? What is the goal of early intervention? Who is truly prepared to address emergent psychological needs?

Dr. Lerner's university/college crisis workshops and presentations are based on A Practical Guide for University Crisis Response co-authored by Dr. Lerner. These presentations describe the structure and process for effectively managing the wide spectrum of university-based crises - from the seemingly mundane to the most severe. Effective university crisis management cannot be delegated solely to administrators and members of a Crisis Response Team - but all university personnel.

By reaching our college and university families early, during times of crisis, we can reestablish a productive educational process and prevent the acute difficulties of today from becoming the chronic problems of tomorrow

Scroll Down to View the Following Articles:

Crisis Response in Our Schools: A Practical Checklist

A Perspective on Preventing School Violence

How to Reduce the Frequency of Disturbing Threats in Our Schools

Crisis Response in Our Schools: A Practical Checklist

Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D.

The following checklist was developed to facilitate an effective response in the wake of a school-based crisis. This list will require modification to address the unique nature of the crisis situation and should not take the place of competent professional services. By reaching our school families early, during and in the wake of a traumatic event, we can potentially prevent the acute difficulties of today from becoming the chronic problems of tomorrow.

I. Fact Gathering

❏ Notify building principal

❏ Clarify facts surrounding the crisis

❏ Contact school district administration

❏ Contact parents/guardians (of individuals involved/affected)

                · Obtain consent for release of information

❏ Contact police and/or fire department

❏ Principal consults with assistant principal and/or school psychologist

❏ Determine the need for assembling the Crisis Response Team

II. The Call to Action

❏ Assemble the Crisis Response Team

❏ Share facts with team members and assess the impact of the crisis

                · When did the event occur (e.g., during a lunch period, over the summer)?

                · Where did the event occur (e.g., on school grounds)?

                · How did it happen (e.g., accidental, intentional, expected)?

                · How many students and staff are affected by the event?

                · Which students and staff are affected?

                · How are the students and staff affected?

                · How are the faculty responding?

❏ Should classes be suspended temporarily or assignments altered?

❏ Should students be released from school?

❏ How are students indirectly being affected (e.g., siblings/friends at other buildings in the district)?

❏ Determine if additional support services are needed (e.g., psychologists/social workers/counselors

from other buildings)

                · Weigh efficacy of "unknown" professionals

                · Provide identification badges for these outside professionals

❏ Update school district administration

III. Notification Procedures

❏ Consider:

                · Announcement to students and faculty

                · Announcement should not give too many details that could be misinterpreted

                · Location of support personnel (e.g., library)

                · Need for students to sign out of class and in with support personnel

                · Mailbox memorandum to faculty and staff

                · Emergency faculty meeting (first thing in the morning)

                · Notification of students in classrooms by Crisis Response Team

IV. Crisis Response Team in Motion

❏ Administrators and security circulate through the building.

                · "Pockets" of grieving students should be directed to location of support personnel

❏ Consider letter to be sent to students' homes-facts, summary, reactions, guidelines,

     contact numbers.

❏ Team members should visit selected classrooms to provide opportunity for discussion.

❏ Implement Acute Traumatic Stress Management strategies

❏ Teachers should allow opportunity for students to ventilate.

❏ Counseling with individuals and small groups by psychologists, social workers and/or

     guidance counselors.

                · Attempt to cultivate a "helping relationship" characterized by empathy, warmth and genuineness.

                · Encourage people to express their feelings.

                · Be careful not to lecture and allow periods of silence.

                · Avoid cliches such as, "Be strong..." and "You're doing so well..." Such cliches may only serve to reinforce an individual's feelings of aloneness.

                · Attempt to "normalize" grief reactions.

                · Remember that cultural differences exist in the overt expression of emotions.

                · Maintaining confidentiality, when possible, is crucial.

                · Provide snacks (e.g., juice, cookies, etc.) to students and support staff.

                · It is important to remember that we have support while helping others during this difficult time.

❏ Identify high-risk individuals.

❏ Contact parents/guardians of high-risk students.

❏ Provide referrals for outside support (if indicated).

❏ Provide hot-line numbers to parents/guardians for after school hours (if necessary).

❏ Carefully document events.

❏ Consider open forum for parents (after school hours).

❏ Schedule follow-up by support personnel for high-risk individuals.

❏ Schedule faculty meeting.

❏ Remain sensitive to how team members are being perceived.

V. Addressing the Media

❏ Develop a response - consider confidentiality, family wishes, liability of erroneous information.

❏ Designate a spokesperson - "no one else talks."

❏ Designate alternate spokesperson.

VI. Debriefing

❏ Review the events of the day.

❏ Revise the intervention strategies (e.g., plan for upcoming days).

❏ Monitor reactions of crisis team members - "compassion fatigue."

VII. Funeral

❏ Consider the wishes of the students' family.

❏ Consider the wishes of the victim(s) family regarding attendance.

❏ Consider the age of the attendants.

❏ Consider the number of staff attending.

❏ Have support personnel available there.

VIII. Memorials

❏ Consider appropriateness

❏ Consider a method:

                · a moment of silence

                · a plaque

                · planting a tree

                · a dedication

                · flying the school flag at half-mast

A Perspective on Preventing School Violence

Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D.

Introduction

Not long ago, we dealt with students running in the halls, making excessive noise, cutting a line, talking out-of-turn, chewing gum or violating a dress code.

Today, we are faced with violence including assaults and gang activity. We are seeing an increase in the frequency of substance abuse, self-mutilation, suicide, abandonment of newborn babies, and serious injuries and deaths from automobile accidents. We are also contending with new types of violence including terrorist attacks, hostage-taking, snipers, murders, sexual predators, "hit lists," threatening graffiti, bomb scares and real bombs. Following, is a perspective on how we may prevent school violence.

What are the causes of school-based violence?

A wide spectrum of traumatic events are impacting our nation's schools. And, as a consequence, school systems are being charged with the responsibility of responding to school-based crises. In recent years, districts have been scrambling to develop comprehensive crisis response plans. We no longer question if a school will be faced with a tragedy, but when.

Many factors contribute to the causes of school violence. Research is helping us to understand the relationship between violent television programs, movies, music lyrics and violent behavior. Additionally, the interactive nature of violent computer and video games is being investigated. We hear about the availability of guns and other weapons and we cannot ignore the data. During the last decade, nearly 80% of all violent deaths in schools were caused by guns (The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence).

There is a dramatic increase in alcohol and substance use among our children, peer pressure and gang involvement. We are learning about children who are tormented, teased and bullied, and then go on to harm themselves and others. We are seeing the effects of divorce, parents working long hours and an absence of parental supervision, training and example-setting. Today, there are relaxed curfews, a lack of respect for authority and a lack of family involvement with schools. There is a changing family structure as well - with a large number of single parent families, grandparents and extended family living in the home.

Today, we are also seeing a growing trend of violence related to race and/or religion. This is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that diversity in America is rapidly increasing. The extent to which these variables are related to the quantitative and qualitative changes in violent school-based crises will become more apparent with time and with further empirical investigation.

The inevitability of illness, accidents and loss may be accepted and even anticipated by schools that often view themselves as microcosms of our world. But why is there such a dramatic increase in deliberately-caused tragedies - those of intentional human design?

I believe that at the very core of our problem is a fundamental communication breakdown in families - the result, in large part, of an increasingly digital and mechanized world. We are spending less time communicating, teaching and modeling appropriate behavior with our children - we are losing the battle to the proliferation of electronic media in a rapidly changing, digital world.

At the breakfast table, newspapers and television offer a daily dose of violence. And, at dinner time, our children leave the dinner table or family room, opting for the new era in violent television, video and computer games, and Internet chat rooms. We used to know where our children went when they left our homes. Today, we don't know where they are when they are in their bedrooms!

Far too many children lack interpersonal communication, coping and problem-solving skills to meet the challenges of our new world - one reason why an increasing number of them act-out feelings of anger and frustration in dangerous attention-seeking ways, "self-medicate" with alcohol and other substances, and commit suicide at a higher rate than ever before.

How can we prevent school violence?

Today, our school systems are investing in expanded security forces, the installation of metal detectors and surveillance cameras, hand-held communication devices, "panic buttons," and computer "fire walls." Safety audits are becoming standard operating procedure. Although there are certainly benefits gained from taking these mechanical steps, we must address the root of the problem.

We need to help our children and adolescents to develop and enhance their communication and problem-solving skills. We must teach them how to actively listen and to empathize when relating with others. We must help our children to understand the importance of articulating their feelings about themselves and for others, and to know that it is okay to err on the side of caution when expressing concerns about others. We must regularly remind them that they can turn to their parents and/or school support personnel who will take the time to listen and respond to them. We must invest in the development of "people skills."

Far too often our children hear of disturbing ideas or plans prior to a tragedy and they do not know how to respond. It is not until the aftermath of a disaster that we see survivors interviewed and we hear them describe how the perpetrator had, in some way, suggested impending doom. In cases of adolescent suicide, more than 80% of kids who commit suicide tell someone, in some way, that they are going to end their life. Our children do not know what to do or where to turn with critical information.

We must work toward improving communication, through a multimodal approach, in order to prevent violent school tragedies. We can address emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral and physiological factors. For instance, we can help our children and adolescents to identify physiological changes in their bodies, which may precede or coincide with feelings of frustration and anger. We can help them to understand which of their behaviors/actions cause others to become frustrated and angry. We can teach them to become aware of and to identify negative self-statements - cognitions that generate feelings of frustration and anger. And, we can help our children to learn to replace self-defeating statements with positive coping statements. Behaviorally, we can model and espouse appropriate moral behavior, set limits and be consistent with our behavior. Ultimately, we can teach our children to show compassion and sincerity in relating with others.

We must help our children to understand that conflict is a natural part of interpersonal relationships. When we handle conflict well, it presents an opportunity to learn, to better understand ourselves and to generate creative solutions. When we handle conflict poorly, it can lead to violence.

We must help our children to make more adaptive, goal-directed decisions when faced with feelings of frustration. For example, we can teach them that it is okay to walk away from altercations or to take a few moments to "cool down." We can teach our children to express themselves assertively, to implement relaxation techniques, and to utilize conflict resolution and peer mediation skills. Interestingly, when we ask children and adolescents what they believe may help to reduce the frequency of school-based tragedies, they indicate that there needs to be more constructive opportunities for expression of feelings. On the other hand, we must keep in mind that conflict resolution techniques and peer mediation programs presuppose conflict.

How can we prevent school violence? We must reach our children when they are very young and invest in developing communication and problem-solving skills.?Today, we must view all members of the school family as being "at risk" and become aware of the "early warning signs" to identify individuals who may be at greater risk for engaging in violent behavior.

Conclusion

It is important to understand what factors may be causing school-based tragedies. Ultimately, research will help us to understand the causative variables and the efficacy of specific intervention strategies. However, like many events in a rapidly shifting zeitgeist, we must take initial thoughtful, realistic and logical steps to respond to the problems that we are facing in our schools by developing effective prevention and crisis management strategies. By reaching our school families early, before, during and in the wake of a crisis, we can ultimately keep members of our school family functioning, reduce the likelihood of ongoing emotional suffering and restore the educational process.

How to Reduce the Frequency of Disturbing Threats in

Our Schools

Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D.

In the aftermath of highly publicized tragedies in our nation's schools and universities, we experience a dramatic increase in the frequency of disturbing threats. The impact of these threats must not be underestimated. For example, when a bomb threat is telephoned, emailed or written on a bathroom wall, there is an enormous impact on the school community. The potential need to evacuate a school building under such circumstances presents a host of complex decisions for school administrators and police agencies. Ensuring the safety of the school family and preventing further disruption of the educational process is imperative.

Many feelings are generated from observing police comb a school. I recall one principal's description of how traumatized he, his students and staff were after standing outside of the building, for hours, while dogs searched the building. He indicated that when they reentered the school everyone was anxious, hypervigilant and startled by every closing locker.

In speaking with schools administrators, we hear of other disturbing threats such as "hit lists" and threatening graffiti. For example, the traumatic stress endured by fourteen students, teachers and school administrators specifically named on a poster that was placed in the entrance area of one high school was profound. The poster described how each of them would be harmed. Furthermore, the fear that was experienced by another school family after the statement "Everyone will die on February 15th" had a far-reaching impact upon the entire community. After the building principal informed parents of the threat, nearly all of the eighteen hundred students were absent from school - many roamed the streets of the community.

Understanding what causes or contributes to the surge of disturbing threats in our nation's schools in the wake of well-publicized tragedies may help to reduce the frequency of this behavior in the future.

The reasons why some students choose to make bomb threats, develop "hit lists," or write threatening graffiti are complex, and ultimately research will help us to understand the relationship between these threats and such variables as domestic violence, sexual abuse, substance abuse, violent interactive computer games, chronic teasing and tormenting, bullying, etc. Following is a theoretical perspective based on over two decades of working with children and adolescents, as well as my interpretation of extant literature.

Why is this happening?

There are a significant number of young people who are feeling alone and powerless in our rapidly changing world - a world marked by huge technological advances, communication and information overload, and an expectation of increased productivity. When these individuals observe the tremendous and overwhelming attention following highly publicized dramatic events, many of them identify with the aggressor(s). They fantasize about an opportunity to overcome their feelings of aloneness, inadequacy, weakness and powerlessness. They envision themselves acting-out, and perhaps overcompensate for their uncomfortable feelings. Fortunately, relatively few students act on these violent impulses with significant magnitude. Apparently there is enough impulse control that prevents them from going to the extent that perpetrators of violent mass casualty incidents ultimately manifest. However, in their minds, they see an opportunity to take action, of a lesser magnitude, and still draw a great deal of attention.

In reflecting upon disturbing threats experienced in our schools, we must ask ourselves why some schools experience many threats, why others experience few, and why others seem to escape such experiences. I hypothesize that the climate established by the school administration and the professional staff is directly related to the frequency of disturbing threats.

Educators must be careful not to challenge disturbed young people with statements like, "Our school is a safe place and we will not experience the kinds of events that you heard about yesterday...." Such statements may serve to create a double bind - a challenge for these individuals. These words may incite these students to try to disprove authority figures, to make themselves feel more powerful, and to help them to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy and weakness. On the other hand, educators that ignore highly publicized tragedies occurring in our schools are missing a critical opportunity to help young people articulate disturbing thoughts and feelings and to learn healthy, more adaptive coping strategies.

What can we do to decrease the frequency of disturbing threats?

If indeed the type of individual(s) who generate threats are trying to overcompensate for feelings of aloneness, inadequacy, weakness and powerlessness, we must work toward helping these young people to understand that the effect that they are trying to achieve by making a threat (i.e., to overcompensate for these disturbing feelings) will not result in the attainment of their perceived goal (e.g., to feel more powerful). Rather, the result of the threat may likely cause them to be arrested, feel extremely alone and scared while incarcerated, more inadequate, weaker and truly powerless. If in fact we focus our attention on helping young people to understand and observe the CONSEQUENCES of disturbing threats, the frequency of such threats may be dramatically reduced.

How can we focus our attention on the consequences of being caught? The responsibility here lies at a number of levels. For example, legislation must be enacted that would make bomb threats a felony in all states. In addition to prosecuting perpetrators, these students should face significant school-related consequences, including expulsion. Schools should establish clear policies whereby all lost time due to disturbing threats would have to be made-up. Parents should be held financially responsible for the municipal costs of responding to threats. And the media should invest more attention in showing alleged perpetrators being led in handcuffs to police vans, and less time on pictures of adolescent killers sitting and smiling among their peers.

The bottom line is that we must take steps to help young people to understand the consequences of disturbing threats by focusing attention not on the glorification of such acts, but on the reality of their actions.

Establish an on-site

CRISIS Response Team

with the author of

A Practical Guide for Crisis Response in Our Schools and

A Practical Guide for University Crisis Response