District-Wide Safe Schools and Crisis Plan - Blytheville Public Schools

6. Monitor how staff is assessing students for the emotional impact of the crisis.
7. Maintain contact with the Principal and Director of Safety to acquire
information about the response operations and to report potential problems.
8. Conduct daily debriefings for faculty, staff and others assisting in the
recovery. The Director of Safety will be resources for assistance.\
9. Through collaboration between site recovery professionals, Director of Safety, and
Emergency management First Responders; persons identified as needing longterm
care will be referred to local mental health and other human service providers.
10. Critique the incident recovery efforts and activities using feedback from
members of the Mississippi County Emergency Response, the District Crisis
Response Team, faculty and staff, students and community members.
I.1.(D) SAMPLE SCHOOL CRISIS INTERVENTION ACTIVITIES
Trauma experts emphasize the need to create a caring, warm, and trusting environment
for students following a crisis. Allow students to talk about what they felt and
experienced during the traumatic event. Younger children who may not be able to fully
express their feelings verbally will benefit from participating in creative activities,
including drawing, painting, or writing stories. Young adolescents benefit from group
discussions in which they are encouraged to talk about their feelings, as well as from
writing plays or stories about their experiences. Engage older adolescents in group
discussions, and address any issues of guilt (“I could have taken some action to change
the outcome of the crisis”).
Elementary (grades K-5) Secondary (grades 6-12)
Draw-a-picture Art, music, dance
Tel l-a-story Stories, essays, poetry, video production
Books on disaster and loss Books on disaster and loss
Create a play or puppet show about a
disaster
Create a play, or video about a disaster
Create a game about a disaster, disaster
preparedness, or disaster recovery
Group discussions about disaster,
disaster preparedness, or disaster
recovery
School study projects School projects on health or natural and
social sciences
Materials about disaster safety and self Materials about disaster safety and self,
and family protection
family, and community protection
Masters of Disaster, available from Red
Cross
School service projects
Reprinted and adapted from Lystad, M. (Ed.). (1990). Innovations in Mental Health
Services to Disaster Victims (DHHS Publication No. ADM 90-1390). Washington, DC:
US Government Printing Office.
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