Intervention with child victims of trauma

1. INTERVENTION WITH CHILD
VICTIMS OF TRAUMA IN THE SCHOOL
SETTING
M.S Sara Dawod

2. CASE PRESENTATION: THE TRAUMATIC
EVENT
 The traumatic event: teacher killed
 The briefing and time for defusing give faculty and
support staff the opportunity to ask questions about what
happened, express a small measure of their own grief,
and then discuss and decide how to deal with the
students.
 They present the known facts, discuss normal grief
reactions, and then open the floor to discussion. While
everyone is alert and watches for students who are more
distressed.

3. STRESS REACTION
 10 percent of those children and adults will experience
profound, long-lasting stress effects.
 Cognitive symptoms:
- Memory loss.
- Difficulty with problem solving.
- Loss of attention and concentration.
 Emotional symptoms:
- Anxiety. - Fear.
- Depression. - Irritability.
- Anger.

4. TRAUMATIC STRESSORS MAY LEAD TO
TRAUMATIC STRESS REACTIONS
 Traumatic stressors upset the equilibrium of the person & often
result in disorganization and inability to cope.

5. FACTORS OF THE TRAUMATIC IMPACT UPON
THE CHILDREN:
 Perceived threat to life.
 Time duration of the trauma.
 Causation of the loss (man-made, God-made,
intentional).
 Manner in which the event affects the beliefs and
expectations.

6. KEY FACTORS
 How the event fits into the child’s life view .
 social support to the child.
 level of seriousness of the trauma. (duration, frequency,
source, type).

7. CHILD’S BELIEFS & TRAUMA
 School personnel must determine first what beliefs
the event challenges or changes in that child’s
mind.
 Traumatic events invalidates aspects of child’s
previous view of the world.
 If the traumatic event is long-term and chronic
denial frequently occurs after the initial outcry and
alarm phase. It may occur via repression,
dissociation, amnesia, or splitting into multiple
personalities if the trauma is extremely severe.

8. MAJOR GOAL FOR SCHOOL CRISIS RESPONSE
TEAM
 Help students and staff achieve cognitive completion and
integration into a model of the world and individual
assumptions that negate self-blame.

9. INTERVENTION

10. 1- ESTABLISHING A SCHOOL-BASED CRISIS
RESPONSE TEAM
 The crisis team must be willing to accept responsibility to provide needed
services.
 crisis team:
1. Must be aware of ancillary community services and agencies.
2. Define frontline plan of service prior to the occurrence of a
crisis.
3. Should be given crisis response training and be familiar with
post-traumatic stress theory and intervention principles as
well as grief theory.
4. Need to know principles of group work and how to run
groups as facilitators.
5. Must be able to manage anxiety-based reactions of students
and staff in a quiet, non punitive, direct manner.

11. 7. Handle intense emotional expression without falling apart.
8. Must give others permission to express feelings while
providing emotional support.
9. Must teach coping and problem-solving skills.
10. They must be empathic, not sympathetic, reflective, and
calmative.
11. They must be willing to work extended hours, keeping school
open if the situation demands,
12. Must be aware of the principles of child development , age
and stage appropriate conceptual reasoning abilities.

12. HELPING STUDENTS AFFECT THEM
 By helping students who have been traumatized to
debrief team members prevent or minimize the existence
of long-term post-traumatic reactions.
 Mobilization of resources both within and outside the
system, is important and necessary.
 Providing support, understanding, empathy, and care to a
traumatized child helps that child express grief, loss, and
other post-trauma emotions.

13. 2- GROUP MEETINGS OR ASSEMBLIES
 If the school is large or the stressor trauma impacts large
numbers, demand for crisis services is high. This demand
may exceed the resources of the school.
 In these instances, additional external personnel maybe
asked to offer assistance – personnel from a local mental
health agency.
 Students maybe grouped by grade level.
 When this happens it is important to station a number of
sensitive staff at various points in the rooms to observe
student reactions and approach those who are especially
upset. Local mental health can fill in.

14.  In case of suicide event, nothing that indicates the glorification
of the acts or acts should be used, so that possible contagion is
avoided. Because there’s an extremely high probability that a
second suicide will occur.
 It’s extremely important to include a suicide prevention
component in the assembly.
 Students are invited to share healthy, adaptive responses they
have used to cope, while avoiding self-destructive acts.
 Education about the normalcy of a post-traumatic and grief
reaction and the stages of healing needs to be included as part
of the message.

15.  Speakers may suggest ways to cope with the traumatic
events that give more meaning to what has happened.
 Assembly concludes with a message of hope and a
reiteration of factual information about what will happen
next.
 Attendance are given a challenging message to help
restore morale and to establish a goal.
Assemblies and general meetings should last
approximately one hour.

16. 3- SMALL GROUP INTERVENTION
 Students whose grief reactions are inappropriate,
extreme, and were close to the deceased should be
escorted to waiting professionals for small group and
individual sessions.
These people often do not seek to be part of large groups.
 These groups are generally geared toward crisis
intervention and are led by two professionals.
While one leads the discussion the other observes the group
to note who appears to be at a greater risk of developing
acute post-traumatic stress reaction or disorder.

17.  Weinberg says: “close friends with the victim(s) may
have had a pre existing conflict with the deceased that
was not resolved or are unable to accept the reality of the
death.”
 At times these students are unable to control of their
emotions and express extreme grief, may express
extreme, self-punitive anger and self blame, may have
suicidal thoughts, insinuations or ruminations, or may
self – mulitate.
 Number of members should only be 15 individuals.

18.  Purpose of the group:
1. Allow the persons to talk about the event and its impact on
them and their involvement in the event.
2. Respect boundaries of confidentiality and encouraged to talk
only for themselves.
3. to discussing the normalcy of grief and traumatic reactions,
correct false information about what happened during the
event, give facts about what will happen next.
4. Share what they thought about the event when they heard of
it.
5. Helped to examine current and past losses and identify
proactive, empowering coping strategies.

19.  These groups are not aimed as “cures” for traumatic
reactions. Instead, they are designed to minimize the
later occurrence of disruptive post-traumatic stress
reactions and therefore are in essence, preventive.

20. PRINCIPLES OF POST TRAUMATIC INDIVIDUAL
COUNSELING FOR CHILDREN

21. CONCLUSIONS
 Time heals all wounds, unless wounds are buried,
repressed or dissociated and until the wounds
intrude into the child’s life at a later time.
 Also children are resilient, but those who get
positive attention from others, who have a sense of
meaning of life, who are bounded with caretakers,
and demonstrate faith, hope, humor are more likely
to heal.