Crisis Response Unit Overview
The Office of School Safety is pleased to share information about our newly established Crisis Response Unit. The Crisis Response Unit exists to assist schools in overall crisis management, from preparing and preventing incidents to responding to and helping with a school’s post crisis needs. The Unit is composed of experienced school mental health professionals vetted and trained by the Office of School Safety.
Planning for Crisis
The Crisis Response Unit is available for assistance in establishing school safety teams (also called the Incident Command System) and Crisis Response Teams within schools. Establishing these teams ahead of time allows for a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities during crisis events, provides a common language for emergency responses, and streamlines coordination with outside agencies.
Coming Soon: After completing a brief training, schools and districts may access the Crisis Response Toolkit, a toolkit designed to provide K-12 schools and districts with essentials in writing crisis response plans, including sample policies, procedures, and resources.
Trainings Offered
The Crisis Response Unit is available to train school staff in best practices in crisis prevention and response. The Crisis Response Unit offers training in the PREPaRE model, established by the National Association of School Psychologists for educators, free of cost to you. The following two workshops are available to your school:
- Workshop One, Comprehensive School Safety Planning Prevention Through Recovery: This one-day workshop, designed primarily for administrators and safety team members, addresses critical components needed to develop, exercise and evaluate safety and crisis teams plans.
- Workshop Two, Mental Health Crisis Interventions. Responding to an Acute Traumatic Stressor in Schools: This two-day workshop, designed primarily for mental health professionals, helps to develop the knowledge and skills required to provide immediate mental health crisis interventions to students, staff, and school community members who have been exposed to an acute traumatic stressor.
- Crisis Response Plan Template: Designed to provide K-12 school districts with essentials in writing crisis response plans, including sample policies, procedures, and crisis-related resources. Required 1 hour training on writing crisis response plans in order to access the template.
- Crisis Response Skills for Varying Ages: This two-hour training helps prepare crisis responders to work with adults and students from Pre-K to 12th grade. Participants will learn crisis interventions and strategies for varied age groups and will have the opportunity to practice those strategies and skills.
Additional trainings include:
Psychological First Aid (PFA)
- An evidence-based approach to help students, staff, and community members in the immediate aftermath of a crisis.
- Options for PFA range from a brief two-hour training of the essentials of the model up to a full-day comprehensive training.
Calm-Engage-Distract
- Provides information on pediatric distress and developmentally appropriate strategies for responding to children in crisis.
- A brief training for educators on how to calm students after a critical incident.
Response Services
Mental Health Support
Crisis Response Unit staff are available, for a limited time per incident, to assist in the initial recovery period following a crisis incident when additional mental health resources are needed.
Critical Incident Group Debriefing (CIGD) for staff
Critical Incident Group Debriefing or CIGD, is a short-term group intervention process that focuses on an immediate event. This group debriefing process provides a place for participants to talk and share experiences, and for the facilitator to teach and provide information about the impact of critical incidents. Please see the following document for more on CIGD: Description of Stress Debriefing.
Please reach out to Kati Garner at kati.garner@state.co.us for further information or to request services offered by the Crisis Response Unit for your school or district. We look forward to serving our Colorado schools.
Resources
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Understanding Child Traumatic Stress: A Guide for Parents
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network: Understanding Trauma Responses in Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
- Americal Foundation for Suicide Prevention: After a Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools
- National Association of School Psychologists: NASP School Safety and Crisis Resources
- National Center for School Safety: Returning to School After a Crisis: A Guide to Addressing Traumatic Events at School