Video Transcript
When we think about the initial stages of crisis and how community support plays into that, it’s important again that people feel like they have access, even if it’s just information.
Sometimes when we minimize that—again, maybe even myself as a professional, a principal, teacher, other organizational leaders—we feel like we have to have something really big and extravagant to respond to what’s happening. Sometimes it’s just communication. Sometimes we are creating a space.
For example, we’re saying, “Hey, we’ve created a town hall in this building. It’s a safe space. We want you to come here. Feel free to ask questions,” or “We have a place for you to check in and just see how you’re doing.” So sometimes, to start, you just want to communicate that you are there for everyone. Validate what they’re experiencing and that they can come to you for support and help. And this is what it looks like.
The human connection does need to be acknowledged and elevated because human beings are social animals. We share across cultures, across states, countries, continents. We share those basic values of love, respect, honesty, and feeling safe. Those are things that I’ve realized in my work that expand to many different areas.
And the human connection can create situations where people feel part of a community. They feel valued. They feel that somebody acknowledges them. So it can do a lot.
And I think people are afraid of it for some reason. We’re afraid of that feeling of vulnerability, which in a sense makes us human because it allows us to take that extra step to creating those relationships that will help us maneuver through life.
When your community is experiencing a crisis, the first thing that you may notice is that there’s a great deal of memorials being set up. For example, where the incident occurred, someone may be wanting to put flowers there. You may see where the reaction could be where people are like, “Come to this place—we’re serving beverages, drinks,” or “We’re collecting items for the people who have experienced a crisis.” We’re setting up resources.
So there’s going to be a great deal of things that you can support and do, and it may feel quite overwhelming.
It’s also important to say in a suicide situation that we don’t glorify it. I’ve seen it initially. There have been waves of suicides going on in communities, and it’s almost like we’re not talking about what led to the suicide, but we’re talking about almost a glorification of that person and their life to the point where they’ve lost almost their humanness, if that makes sense.
And then other kids feel like, “Wow, I want to be like that person.” You know, there are pictures on Facebook of them with halos and wings. And I understand that’s how some people cope with it. But I also think that it’s helpful to understand why that person got in that situation in the first place, and that children know it’s not all about glorification.
We’ve got to talk about what happened to that individual—and maybe the sadness and the depression that they were feeling. Again, telling the two sides of the story is important. Children need to know that.
So some things to be aware of when your community is facing a crisis is, although you may depend on those professionals—your principal, teachers, community leaders—to go into the mode of just immediately helping and doing everything they can, let’s not forget that they also have experienced that crisis, and they may have some trauma responses.
People want to find an answer for the reason why the crisis occurred. And unfortunately, sometimes people start to blame individuals or things or activities or events in the community as the main reason for the crisis. And in a way, that gives them some relief to start to do that.
And these are just kinds of responses that are quite overwhelming because they’re human. And it may take them a minute to readjust and know, “Okay, now we have to go into a mode of being able to help and have some solutions to the issues and problems.”
And so I think what a community should do is first make sure people are safe. Make sure people feel they’re able to express their feelings in a setting where there isn’t going to be blame directed at anybody.
And then take some time to just breathe.
And then search for community services or organizations that can help them through this situation.
But the key thing really is not to have a knee-jerk reaction where people start blaming.
