Addressing Death and Grief
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Transcript of Addressing Death and Grief
When Death and loss impact the school community
*Addressing Death and Grief
*Major Events
*Axe Murder at the Edge of Campus*High profile death of parent
*How we responded
*Lock down per police request*Counselor team heads to the gym*Write down each kids name and what they
saw*Counselors meet with Senior Admin*Counselor calls the parents of all the kids in the gym class.*Email from the head of School
*How we responded
*Follow up throughout the year*Addressing the fantasy and the reality*Poems, essays, etc.
*Continued tons of communication from Admin to parents*Extended Time off for the Teacher who witness and managed the initial response
*Development
*What we did well*Focus on communication*Lots of communication and interaction with kids ongoing
*What we could have done better*Better Training for Staff
*On-going tasks for teachers
*ART: create collages *HISTORY: put event in historical context*ENGLISH: journaling or poetry*SCIENCE: understanding brain chemistry
causing psychotic bipolar*MATH: maps area of incident*MUSIC: relaxation music to manage stress*GYM: yoga
*Our Response
*No written Crisis response*Senior Admin have lots of experience so
there is a protocol*Tom calls mary 10 minutes after the death*We ask permission for all communication*Tons of communication*Head of school writes and edit and
reviews by 3-4 people
*Supporting Students
*Anniversary was also a challenge*Many middle school kids traumatized ie. What if my
mother was killed or died as many have no experience with death
*Could that happen to me*Lots of loose talk about death*Between May 2012 abd April 2013 we had 7
parents die including Kathy Goertzen*SAAS has 3 permanent counselors*Our media spokesperson, former Seattle Sonics
Media man
*Our Improvement
*Need more training in how to communicate with students in crisis events, particularly for MS students*Many of our young exuberant staff have
great relationships with younger kids but don’t have skills for crisis mode.*Need to learn to Hear, care and listen then
become part of the counselor team*Should have a written crisis plan