WE CAN HELP WITH GRANT WRITING! Grant Writing Information [ Download this page as a PDF ] If you are interested in learning more about grant budgeting, please contact us Background--Crisis Management Institute and Cheri Lovre, MS. The Crisis Management Institute (CMI) provides schools with cutting edge knowledge, insights, training, planning, and response capabilities. CMI offers a full spectrum of training and technical assistance in all phases of crisis prevention, preparedness, planning, response, and recovery. Cheri Lovre, MS, is the Founder and Director of CMI. She has spent nearly 30 years assisting schools prevent, plan for, and respond to crises. Her background and skills include creating the team concept to crisis response; creating manuals surrounding crisis planning, response, and recovery; creating facilitator programs; and designing training for district-wide, county-wide, state-wide, and national school catastrophic events response teams. She has developed a philosophy and a program around the unique requirements of victims of trauma. Training offered by CMI takes schools through the process of evaluating what is in place that works well, what is missing or inadequate, and what strengths lie in the community. From this shared process, the participants build a shared vision of what they would like their team to do. The process and activity focus of the training creates ultimate flexibility in implementation for each community. In the months following September 11, 2001, Ms. Lovre applied her expertise in a number of school districts in New York and New Jersey. She provided immediate consultation to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado as the school shootings in April 20, 1999, were unfolding and for the following week. She responded onsite to the Thurston High School shooting in Springfield, Oregon in May of 1998. She most recently spent time in Sri Lanka providing support to an orphanage and a school in the aftermath of the tsunami. Ms. Lovre has provided training and technical assistance to the National Association of Secondary School Principals, American School Counselors Association, numerous state associations, rural and urban schools and districts, emergency services providers, and communities, as well as providing training to school staff from all 50 states and six countries. CMI materials are used in school districts in all 50 states. The Methodology behind the Lovre Model CMI training is based on almost 30 years of experience as well as research and learning from the best in the field of trauma, grief, and intervention. Ms. Lovre has designed topic-specific training in a variety of areas surrounding crisis planning and response. CMI trainings reflect knowledge shared by the following leaders in the field: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk Dr. Judith Lewis Herman Dr. Charles Figley Dr. Lenore Terr Dr. Alan Wolfelt Dr. Debra Prothrow Stith Dr. Bessel van der Kolk conducted research at Harvard Medical School. His research focused on how trauma interrupts normal brain function during the witnessing of the event. Ms. Lovre has used van der Kolk's theory in designing the Lovre Model of trauma intervention. The approach for leading parent meetings in the aftermath of traumatic events, suicide clusters, multiple deaths, shootings, and other school catastrophes is greatly based on the work of van der Kolk. The central function of the Lovre Model of Trauma Intervention is to use van der Kolk's findings on the need to re-integrate the memory into both halves of the brain, and to design teacher training that helps with the identification of students who may need professional help. Dr. Judith Lewis Herman provides a terrific service to practitioners by giving an in-depth history of the recognition of the traumatic response. Dr. Herman identifies three major categories of symptomology-intrusion (flashbacks and nightmares), constriction (repression-like shutting off of conscious awareness of the trauma) and hyper arousal (stressed, hyper alert, always waiting for the next traumatic event). These three major categories are crucial in responding to school crises, as those who are victims, those who witness, and those who work closely with victims are all vulnerable to these three symptoms. Each one has a deleterious effect on a student's ability to learn and on a teacher's ability to teach in the aftermath of a traumatic event. Ms. Lovre's recognition of Dr. Lewis-Herman's work has guided the design of her trauma training for counselors. Dr. Charles Figley has been a life-long leader in the field of recognition of veteran's war-related trauma. As a part of his work, he has established the Green Cross. Green Cross is an organization that endeavors to train local mental health practitioners in responding to their own community in the aftermath of major events. Some of his earlier work was especially helpful in organizing communities to respond to hurricanes, and much was clearly applicable to a variety of both natural disasters and human-caused catastrophes. Ms. Lovre provided some of the early workshops for the Green Cross trainings that focused on responding to students and children in the aftermath of traumatic events. Dr. Lenore Terr interviewed students immediately after a traumatic event. She returned years later to interview the same students a second time. It was clear the traumatic event had an impact on their lives, and her research points out the long-term effects of trauma without treatment. Dr. Alan Wolfelt of The Center For Loss and Life Transition in Ft. Collins, Colorado, has offered a great deal to the field of children in grief. By identifying six "tasks" of grief, he has given a structure for creating programs that help youth work through grief. His work is invaluable in designing support for the classroom with the empty desk, for the SafeRoom, and for creating materials for teachers. Wolfelt's work is at the center of all parts of the training that deal with helping students and staff grieve and in follow-up. Dr. Debra Prothrow Stith is Director and Professor of the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health. Although her work is based in research, her insights, courage, and tenacity have proven to us that the effective means to change gun-related deaths for youth-which also translates into effective insights for curbing violence-is in a multi-faceted approach. She found that a community approach to community problems was the most effective way of dealing with a local issue. Experts who have contributed to the field of violence prevention in schools have, as often as not, been collectives, agencies, or groups. Linda Lantieri of Educators for Social Responsibility, author of the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program, is just one great example of many who have created programs on peacemaking, nonviolence, tolerance, anti-bullying, and other related programs. Many of these are relatively new as the field of crisis planning and response emerges. By examining what works in these programs, assessment checklists can be created to assist districts in determining weak links in their programs that leave them more vulnerable to violence or school climate problems. Ms. Lovre has been cautious to use an approach that is appropriate for the school setting, using a format of guided conversation that has clinical value. CMI's training pulls together the best of these and many other leaders in the fields of prevention, grief, crisis, and catastrophic events response and interprets the gems of their message, bringing skill-building and practical application to the participant. The Importance of Community-Based Crisis Planning and Response When a crisis occurs, a school or community is thrown into a reactive mode unless it has taken the time to train, plan, and coordinate response efforts-both within the school and the larger community. Schools need to involve community partners in the planning efforts. Local law enforcement, mental health centers, public safety, hospitals and clinics, and local government all should play a role in developing a comprehensive crisis response plan. Other agencies can also be included in the actual team training, serving as valuable members of a planning and/or response team. Hospice nurses and social workers, juvenile services workers, members of the faith-based community, bi-lingual and bi-cultural aides, teachers, and private mental health practitioners can all play an important role in planning for and responding to crisis. CMI assists schools and communities in planning for a wide range of events and hazards caused by both nature and people, such as: Natural disasters (earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood) Severe weather Fires Chemical or hazardous material spills Bus crashes School shootings Bomb threats Medical emergencies Student or staff deaths Acts of terror Declaration of or impending threat of war With the proper training and planning, a school or community Crisis Response Team is empowered to handle difficult situations, promote healing, and prevent the spread of violence that stems from unresolved grief. CMI designs a comprehensive plan and training that assures preparedness. Taken into account are the requirements, policies, procedures, and the individuality of the school, district, and community. CMI promotes the use of existing resources, teamwork, and networks within the community. The CMI model is designed to empower staff members to effectively handle crisis situations while mitigating undue stress and burnout. CMI supports the key principles for effective crisis planning established by the Department of Education: Effective crisis planning begins with leadership at the top. There are specific days in CMI training designed to include administrators. Crisis plans should not be developed in a vacuum. Emphasis is placed on conducting the planning phase with a wide cast of community partners Schools and districts should open the channels of communication well before a crisis. The CMI model encourages open communication early in the emergency planning stages. Crisis plans should be developed in partnership with other community groups, including law enforcement, fire safety officials, and emergency medical services, as well as health and mental health professionals. The CMI model encourages comprehensive planning with a wide range of community partners. A common vocabulary is necessary. CMI trainings establish and encourage the use of a consistent vocabulary for crisis planners. Schools should tailor district crisis plans to meet individual school needs. Specific activities during the planning phase are designed to identify and address any weaknesses in the proposed plan, as well as build on the unique strengths of the individual community. Plan for the diverse needs of children and staff. CMI trainings emphasize comprehensive planning, addressing the needs of the entire school community. Include all types of schools where appropriate. CMI recognizes the uniqueness of each community and includes all types of schools when creating a comprehensive community plan. Provide teachers and staff with ready access to the plan so they can understand its components and act on them. During training, emphasis is placed on open communication and inclusiveness of all community partners. All partners play a part in the design, planning, and execution of the crisis plan. Training and practice are essential for the successful implementation of crisis plans. CMI recognizes that there are many options for practice and drills within a community's crisis response plan. The practice of drills and response may vary from one district to another, but practice will be emphasized. Crisis plans are living documents. CMI training stresses the need for both debriefings for school staff and crisis teams. Additionally, an important part of the crisis team debriefing is to evaluate how to improve the response plan from the lessons learned. Identifying improvements is a strength, not a weakness. Community partners will be encouraged to gather to review and update the crisis plan on a regular basis. A Systems Approach to School and Community-Based Crisis Planning and Response Schools and communities may not be used to such comprehensive planning as is required for systemic crisis response awareness. It requires the community partners think differently, behave differently, and work together differently. Systems thinking, promoted by Peter Senge, provides the framework for communities to transform into a clear and focused unit, working with a shared vision and toward a common goal. A systems thinking approach provides schools and communities with new tools and skills for collaboration. In the CMI model, systems thinking is introduced in an early session and provides the following benefits: Creates the framework for the planning process Overcomes any turf issues between the collaborators Identifies a shared vision and common goal for the process Provides tools that allow for a new way of approaching issues that have not been previously experienced. In order to bring about team planning to address issues that we've not yet faced, Crisis Response planners need to be able to think in more dynamic ways than ever before. Instead of a laundry list of things to do, which was the "old" approach to crisis response and recovery, it is now clear that a deeper understanding of the structures that allow groups to think differently is required. Systems thinking provides a framework, skills, and tools for solving these problems. Peter Senge's work in the corporate world has been interpreted to be school-oriented. Schools That Learn, took Peter Senge's research and work and brought it into into staff meetings, curriculum planning, and even the kindergarten classroom. Students from K-12 have terrific capacity to learn Systems Thinking, and it can provide a structure within which the rest of the crisis prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery work can unfold. One of the greatest lessons learned from 9/11/01 in New York was that traditional approaches to school-based crisis response were woefully inadequate for the overall response. In designing a response to schools affected by 9/11/01, Ms. Lovre integrated Systems Thinking into the plan for responding to the needs of the schools in lower Manhattan. The skills and tools provided in a Systems Thinking approach created the means for schools to support students, parents, and teachers. CMI Training Aligns with the Four Phases of Planning The Department of Education produced a report in May of 2003 titled Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities. Ms. Lovre was consulted during the creation of the report, and her contributions carry over to her day-to-day work with schools and communities. In the report, there are four phases of crisis management. In sequence, they are: Mitigation/Prevention Preparedness Response Recovery This narrative describes CMI training and how the activities fit within each phase of crisis management planning and response. CMI concepts and training components align with the four phases of crisis planning and response. CMI trainings are a combination of personal experience, scenario planning, and tabletop exercises. CMI trainings have five components, all set within a systems approach. All begin with a check-in and introductions of all to each other in the group. This component is repeated with each training session, reinforcing the team spirit, the importance of each individual in the group, and the strength of the collaborative multi-agency approach. Each training segment contains a seamless blend of presentation of theory and foundational concepts. Participants then move in to small group scenario work or activities designed to bring out their personal experience and strengths while creating the collaborative team approach/plan. Large group scenarios and discussion sessions bring each concept together each step of the way. The outcome of a comprehensive CMI training is an identified and prepared team of school and community members able to lead response and recovery efforts. Past efforts have shown that, when teams respond well to the smaller crises, and then hold debriefings and evaluate the response, much becomes evident that can be put in place that falls into the category of prevention. Thus, at CMI, prevention and response are not just part of the same continuum; they are part of a learning cycle. The crisis plan should be an organic document, with improvements made each time experience is gained. CMI takes that concept one step further-that this is an organic process, and that all participants on the team will also enhance their skills with experience and evaluation of responses. For schools and communities that already have taken the steps to begin crisis planning, CMI and the Department of Education Emergency Response and Crisis Management grant can lead participants to the next level of preparedness. For schools and communities that have yet to address emergency response or crisis planning issues, CMI can help lay the foundation for a comprehensive and systemic plan for prevention, response, and recovery. CMI Emergency Response and Crisis Management Planning Services CMI offers Crisis Team Training, which covers the four phases of crisis planning; prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. CMI also offers other training services as well as direct consultation (needs assessment, evaluation). The Foundation - Crisis Team Training Crisis Team Training - On-site training for district/community Crisis Response Team -- this is a collaborative approach bringing team members and local agency people together. Accompanying Materials for Inservicing All School Staff: All Staff Preparedness-a video program that inservices staff on basic concepts Next Steps -- Continued Training: Trauma Training for Counselors-a two-day workshop on interventions Live Web Broadcast Seminars-five options throughout the year Media Relations-a one-day workshop for Public Information Officers and administrators from all agencies and schools involved Threat Assessment - a one-day workshop for key school and collaborating agency staff On-site Safety Assessments -- Site and facility safety audits -- we train your staff Capacity Building within a Community -- Systems approaches to complex problem solving and collaborative teamwork among agencies and schools. Facilitator Training-A capacity-building model that trains Crisis Response Leaders who are then responsible for training the remaining staff within the school community. Catastrophic Events -- taking crisis response to the next level -- addresses events that unfold on school campus during the school day when lives are at stake Advanced Team Training-a two-day follow-up for leadership and teams The Foundation--Crisis Response Team Training Crisis Response Team Training is an on-site training for a school, district, community, or region. This is a comprehensive, broad training that includes conceptual aspects, problem solving, planning, skill building, and pragmatic exercises. Because the training builds on concepts from segments before, "slots" in the training cannot be shared by staff. The same people need to attend the entire team training to be a member of the team. This five-day training includes the crucial content and leads participants through exercises designed to address the four areas outlined in the grant-mitigation/prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Two of the training days bring together administrators and leaders from all organizations and agencies involved, together with those who will provide the psychological and emotional support to students, staff, parents, and others. The other three days are more specific to those who provide the direct support to students, staff, and parents. The training can handle up to 50 Community Team members. Community Teams are comprised of school personnel as well as those from a variety of outside agencies. The school participants might include administrators, counselors, school psychologists, nurses, social workers, teachers, clerical staff, special education staff, or others who deal with special-needs students, bi-lingual and bi-cultural staff who reflect your student population, transportation, safety officers, and other key personnel. Communities have a unique opportunity under the federal Emergency Response and Crisis Management Plans Discretionary Grant to include members outside of the education community. Those participants may include: first responders, mental health workers, the health department, public safety, local government, local law enforcement, local hospitals, government, faith-based representatives, service groups, and local business. Crisis Response Team Training-The Details Day One morning brings together all who will be on the Community Team. Content covered and activities provided in this segment are the skeleton of responding to anything from a natural disaster to a school shooting to events of terrorism. Content of Day One is specific to all leadership personnel in all agencies involved and all team members from the district as well as any who will be brought into the school following an event. This is a day for building trust between those in charge and those who will come in to provide support. This is when the chain of command and authority is addressed. This is for the Entire Community Team. Day One afternoon involves the team members who will be providing direct services or support to students, staff, and parents in the aftermath of crises or tragedies. This day covers grief, children in grief, and special challenges brought about by suicide, homicide, and missing children. Content of Day One afternoon is specific to Support Team members who will be providing counseling to students, staff and parents or giving support in classrooms-this is the team that provides the psychological and emotional support. Day Two is suicide prevention, intervention and post-vention. This includes concepts for inservicing teachers and other staff who have contact with children, including those who drive a school bus, crossing guards and para-professionals. Day Three gives a very brief overview of psychological trauma, and then focuses on the mitigation, preparedness, and response to events involving trauma from the perspective of stabilizing the environment, taking into account the range of human reactions to traumatic events. Day Three does not teach the intervention skills, but seeks to put in place many site-wide interventions to curb chaos, limit rumors and misinformation, reunite parents with students in an orderly fashion, and provide strategies for updating staff, students, and parents on information and other measures helpful at such times. Day Three is for the Support Team, but content is very helpful for many from community agencies, and all are welcome. Day Four examines the use of Safe Rooms in the school setting (a place for students to find extra support when most of their classmates are ready to return to academics), meeting the needs of parents (information, communications systems, parent meetings, parent Safe Rooms and other means of providing support), and many details that provide the net that holds this greater concept together. This content is for the Support Team. Day Five brings the Entire Community Team back together to look at the pragmatic steps for getting through crises and for collaborative time and discussion of next steps for the community. It is encouraged that districts recruit a few administrators who will agree to go through the entire five days of training. They lend helpful insights to those on the team, and are excellent at facilitating the team's effectiveness with the rest of the administrators from the district. Likewise, any agencies that are in the collaborative effort are encouraged to send at least one administrator or key communicator from their organization. The Foundation-Crisis Response Team Training includes: Administrative and organizational issues Building a shared vision and common philosophy, language, approach General principles of crisis response Catastrophic events (disaster on campus, immediate life-threat, multi-agency) Grief Children's issues and developmental factors Suicide prevention, intervention, and response Violence prevention Meeting the needs of parents Interfacing with the community Stabilizing the environment in the aftermath of trauma Basic overview of issues related to media relations Collaborative, multi-agency approach to media relations Care for the caregiver Multi-cultural considerations-bi-cultural, bi-lingual needs Trauma Training is designed to give counselors and team members an in-depth understanding of the biochemistry, physiology, and psychology of trauma, followed by skill-building in several techniques for intervention. Interventions address differences in working with an individual, a small group that survived a specific event, parents of the traumatized, interventions in the classroom, Safe Room or large gatherings. This content is specifically designed for counselors, social workers, school psychologists or others from a helping profession who might be attending to the emotional or psychological needs of victims, survivors, witnesses, and others who were in close proximity or had high impact from an event. It is not a pre-requisite that attendees have attended the Foundation-CRT five day training, but is highly recommended. Trauma Training Day One content includes: Differentiating trauma from grief The trauma response in victims Common symptoms (intrusion, constriction, hyper arousal) The biochemistry of the traumatic response Brain function in the face of trauma Effects of trauma - treated, untreated Prevention, immediate intervention, long-term needs Trauma Training Day Two is entirely skill-building for trauma interventions. Live Web Broadcast Seminars cannot take the place of training, but provide an opportunity to present key concepts ahead of time or serve as follow-up or update trainings. Each segment is a stand-alone activity, so attendance at earlier Web casts is not required, though recommended. Although some segments have a targeted audience, content will be general enough to be useful for any staff person who wishes to attend. Web casts serve two purposes: to help the greater team anticipate training issues and be better prepared, and as general staff in-servicing. Some staff members may choose to participate in all Web cast seminars. Possible workshop categories Responding to our current crisis Violence prevention Pragmatics of crisis response Suicide prevention and intervention Facilitating the "SafeRoom" Catastrophic responses Trauma Media relations in major crisis events Media Relations provides a time for all Public Information Officers and any of the leadership to come together to perfect a collaborative plan on holding news conferences, sharing information between all agencies, providing clear information for those staffing incoming calls, keeping leadership in their own prospective agency informed, choosing a focus for the story they'll be reinforcing, and skill-building. Public Information Officers who attend this session will benefit from having attended the Entire Community Team days during the Foundations five day training, but it is not required. Media Relations content includes: Internal organizational strategies Information systems and integration (the collaborative aspect) News conference guidelines News release guidelines Information "streams" (who hears what? Leadership, staff, student, parent, community, and media releases may vary significantly) Framing the story (giving it your focus) Threat Assessment We promote the process adapted as the national model by the USDOE. This workshop is designed to bring a variety of professionals to the table to examine the level of threat posed by a student who threatens the lives of others or is perceived to be a possible threat. After an initial checklist and thumbnail assessment indicates there is reason for concern, both school and community agencies collaborate on making a decision on a case-by-case basis, following a series of carefully orchestrated steps. This process is designed to gain the greatest possible history and current information on the child and calls upon a variety of professional's strengths in order to make the best possible determination. On-Site Safety Assessments CMI sends out professionals who had long careers in police and fire work, and who then became directors of school safety for a metropolitan district. One of these people will lead a half-day workshop with PowerPoint demonstrations of what to look for on everything from lighting to access issues to locks and much, much more. After the first half-day workshop, the afternoon will be a walk-through assessment on one of your buildings, and the next day will provide two more. These walk-throughs are designed to train your own staff on how to do assessments on your own buildings. (Sustainability) Capacity Building within a Community brings in trainers who translate Peter Senge's work in Systems Thinking into the community / school environment. As Einstein said, we cannot solve the problems created at one level of thinking without evolving to a higher level. This workshop teaches a variety of problem-solving skills and activities which readily apply to all kinds of school and community challenges. Facilitator Training provides an opportunity for a few key team members from the district's team to become point people for the continued in-servicing of school staff. It is recommended that a district send a team of three or more people to Facilitator Training, and that all subsequent inservicing provided by those facilitators be team-taught. Teams work well to have members with different skill sets, including one who has terrific presentation skills, one who has sound counseling ability, and others who seem like a great match. The Facilitator Training is a five-day training session. Materials include manuals, videos, and CDs. The video set used for this training is what will be used by these facilitators back in the district. There is inherent flexibility in this program. Video segments are around five minutes long. The most basic use of this program is for school staff to view the video segments in staff meetings over the school year. Each unit, however, also comes with suggestions for taking the concepts into skills, and could become the basis for a 30 to 60 minute activity. A few of these could be identified as a top priority and, together, could provide an entire inservice day on the greater area of tragedy and crisis response, violence prevention and school climate. This training is specifically designed for those who have had the Foundational Five Day Team Training Facilitator Training provides the following components, designed for taking the team concepts into the culture of the school by enhancing teacher and staff skills through continuing professional development: Two Kinds of Teams: How Teams Might Organize Children (Youth) in Grief Need of Youth in Grief Empty Desk: What To Do With Student Belongings One Student Loses a Family Member Suicide Prevention Warming Signs for Potential Suicide Missing Students Announcements Function of a Safe Room Activities for Processing Loss Handling the Classroom on Crisis Day Guidelines for Teachers on Crisis Day Memory Events Effects of Trauma for Individuals Prevention of Trauma Follow-up for Staff and Students Self Care Managing the Media Signs of Need for Professional Help Identifying Signs of Depression Terminal Illness For Students Attending a Funeral for the First Time Teachable Moments Parent Communications Catastrophic Events are those that unfold on campus during the school day, giving rise to threat of student or staff safety, including threat to loss of life or limb. These could include intruders, natural disasters, shooters, chemical spills, or any other kinds of disasters that emerge suddenly and for which immediate action is paramount. Districts are most able to benefit from this training after having begun to integrate the concepts of the Foundational Crisis Response Training into the culture of the school. This training is particularly aimed at the Rapid Response Team for each building or school site. The Rapid Response Team is made up of those who will respond to make immediate decisions and provide CPR, first aid and other lifesaving actions. Each building needs to have those who will fulfill these actions organized and trained ahead of time. A Rapid Response Team would likely include the key administrator, possibly other administrators, a key clerical person, nurse, any who know CPR and first aid, the custodian, buildings and maintenance personnel, a lead teacher and any others whose actions would be helpful during the unfolding of a catastrophic event. Advanced Team Training allows the district to tackle individual challenges that may be unique to that district. Whether a district encompasses a sprawling urban area or serves a very few children from sprawling ranches that spread over thousands of square miles, there will be unique challenges each district faces. These days are set aside to bring focus to exactly that. CATEGORY BY TRAINING ACTIVITY This section demonstrates how the Crisis Team Training package meets the criteria outlined by the Department of Education in the four phases of crisis management; mitigation/prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Crisis Team Training Activity Category Trauma intervention Response The aftermath of trauma Recovery Grief, Loss, and Bereavement Recovery General principles in crisis response Response Suicide prevention Mitigation/Prevention Suicide intervention and response Response Children's issues/developmental factors Recovery Violence prevention Mitigation/Prevention Parent needs in times of crisis/tragedy Response and Recovery Managing the media/press Response and Recovery Crucial communication to survivors Response and Recovery Team leadership Preparedness and Response Leading parent meetings and support efforts Response and Recovery Planning for natural disasters Preparedness Responding to natural disasters Response and Recovery Planning for community-wide events Planning Care for the caregiver (self-care) Recovery Catastrophic school events overview Preparedness and Response Administrative and organizational issues Preparedness SafeRooms Preparedness and Response Unique Deaths/Challenging Circumstances Preparedness and Response Advanced Team Training offers "the next step" for community Crisis Response Teams (CRT). It suits communities that have created a CRT, as well as those who have already identified challenges or weaknesses in their plan or skill sets. This training is open to all administrators and team members who have had the Foundation-Crisis Response Training. Content of training includes advanced skill-building on systems approaches and focuses further on dynamics of natural disasters, community-wide events, terrorism, and the importance of self-care. Time can be taken for threats that have surfaced so recently they were not covered in the basic training. Format will include some lecture, small and large group activities, and discussion. This is limited to those who were part of the initial Crisis Response Team training. Advanced Team Training provides the additional components: More in-depth coverage of Team leadership including skill-building Leading parent meetings and support efforts when emotions run high More specific addressing of responding to natural disasters or community-wide events Care for the caregiver (self-care) Very current events Catastrophic school events overview Day Two content includes: Strategies in intervention Skill-building in intervention Practice sessions for working with individuals, small groups, large groups and community-wide gatherings All Staff Preparedness is a video- and handout-based set of materials to be used under the supervision of a counselor or other prepared team member. This program features 25 topics, each of direct relevance to the teacher and others who work with children. Each segment is just five minutes long, and comes with an accompanying handout. These are designed to slip into existing staff and department meetings, integrating both concepts and language into the staff population. Over time, teachers and other staff are more adept at responding to crisis, but also are better equipped to help a child who has lost a parent or is struggling with a life circumstance that doesn't necessarily involve anyone else in the classroom. The knowledge and skills gained in participating in the All Staff Preparedness is a touchstone for changing school climate. Language, concepts and actions of empathy, kindness, tolerance, acceptance, and understanding help students feel less vulnerable in the school setting and helps bring marginalized students from the fringes into the mainstream. Teachers begin to learn how to recognize stress and anxiety and respond in ways that bring the student in rather than isolating, alienating or punishing them for misbehavior. This program is designed to be led by someone who has had the training, but attendance is inclusive of all school staff who work with students in any capacity at all. All Staff Preparedness program topics include: Two Kinds of Teams: How Teams Might Organize Children (Youth) in Grief Need of Youth in Grief Empty Desk: What To Do With Student Belongings One Student Loses a Family Member Suicide Prevention Warming Signs for Potential Suicide Missing Students Announcements Function of a SafeRoom Activities for Processing Loss Handling the Classroom on Crisis Day Guidelines for Teachers on Crisis Day Memory Events Effects of Trauma for Individuals Prevention of Trauma Follow-up for Staff and Students Self Care Managing the Media Signs of Need for Professional Help Identifying Signs of Depression Terminal Illness For Students Attending a Funeral for the First Time Teachable Moments Parent Communications