CMI Director Cheri Lovre Meet the Director Cheri Lovre, MS, Director of CMI, has over 30 years of experience in the field of grief and trauma. Because of her range of experience, she has developed a philosophy and a specific approach toward the unique requirements of survivors of trauma. The focus of much of that time has been working with schools in the aftermath of student and staff death or other tragedies that overwhelm their usual abilities to cope. During the '80's, while employed by Marion Education Services District in Salem, OR, she worked extensively on creating training and materials for crisis response teams, which has become one of her specialties. She was asked to respond to Springfield Public Schools following of the shooting at Thurston High School in May of 1998, where she spent over a week working with staff, parents and students. Ms. Lovre received initial contact from the superintendent's office of Jefferson County Public Schools as the tragedy at Columbine was unfolding and went on to spend a week in Littleton. Following September 11, 2001 She received a call from the office of the Chancellor of New York on 9/11 as events were unfolding and spent much of the following two years serving the 29 "schools that fled" as the towers collapsed. She worked for over two years with administrators, counselors, teachers, parents and children, and integrated Systems Thinking into the activities used to help all regain stability. This event was the first time the United States had suffered circumstances with such powerful impact to schools in which the whole community support system (including emergency services) was unavailable to assist the schools. Her time on the east coast included serving many schools and communities in New Jersey, where many of those who died in the towers had lived. The Tsunami Following the tsunami in Asia, Ms. Lovre spent time working with an orphanage and school in Sri Lanka. This provided new and important lessons regarding the resiliency and needs of an already-traumatized population (orphans) who subsequently survive a catastrophic event together. Some of these new insights are valuable as we face the possible re-traumatization of American students who have been through one catastrophic event and then must cope with yet another. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Following the hurricanes, Ms. Lovre provided both staff development and group work with students who had relocated because of the hurricanes. Child after child had pictures of a foundation or less and told stories about where their houses had been and shared their dreams or fears about whether their families would be able to return. There were some interesting correlations across the cultures in the art work of survivors of the tsunami and those who had relocated because of hurricanes. Some of the similar responses unique to these two disasters held new insights about how children process this kind of event and what kinds of safeguards their minds are able to utilize. The murders at Nickle Mines ~ an Amish community and their neighbors Following the maassacre, Ms. Lovre provided support and training to both the community and families in Pennsylvania. Virginia Tech. As this horrific event has been unfolding, Ms. Lovre has been assisting in the local area and with institiutions, parents, students and the media accross the U.S. And In General... Ms. Lovre has provided training and technical assistance to the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the American School Counselors Association and other national and state educational services. (View partial list) As school crises have grown and changed, her materials and training continue to reflect the cutting edge in her field. Another outgrowth of her work has been to help states create state-wide teams to help respond to schools in the aftermath of major catastrophic events, such as shootings, natural and human-caused disasters, multiple death accidents and other events. Ms. Lovre continues working in collaboration with leaders in the Systems Thinking movement to take the whole field of crisis response to the level needed when responding to events as overwhelming and complex as terrorism and overwhelming natural disasters.