Dealing with trauma and threats in a school setting is a tough but necessary conversation to have

When emergencies strike within the walls or on the grounds of a school, the reaction of school
staff plays a huge role in how the situation is handled and what the outcome is. During a recent
meeting, school trustees for Northern Gateway Public Schools (NGPS) discussed how
emergencies are handled at the board and school levels within the district.
NGPS utilizes several programs within their arsenal, including Hour-Zero, designed to help K-12
schools keep their learning environments safe. With years of experience behind them, the
creators of Hour-Zero have an extensive database of potential scenarios and protocols for
schools to follow should they face one.
One big piece of the pie for NGPS is the Violence Threat Risk Assessment Community Protocol
Fair Notice brochure that students bring home each fall. The brochure touches on what a threat
is (an expression of intent to do harm or act out violently against someone or something) and
that everyone has to report one if they see or hear it. “If a threat happens, say a student makes
a comment about coming to the school and doing something that’s not good, everybody knows
that they have to report that. The students are told this. The parents are told this. Our staff know
this, and it’s one of our most important things. That threat is brought forward to our folks here
who do this work, and there’s a set of questions and protocol that we run through,” said NGPS
Superintendent Kevin Bird.
The steps in the Fair Notice brochure follow another program that NGPS utilizes called the
Centre of Trauma Informed Practices (CTIP). “They’ve been around for a very long time, and
they are the gold standard for dealing with threats and grief and loss & trauma related to
schools. They reached their expertise by studying every incident that took place for a period of
time. He explained that they have ongoing studies and a lot of debriefing of events, which forms
the basis of their protocols.
When a threat is reported, it triggers the Threat Assessment Team. Each school in NGPS has
staff selected for the role. The team then interviews those involved to determine the risk level
and develop a response that fits the situation. Interviews include the threat-maker(s), their
parents, and involved students and staff.
The questions asked during the process follow a program called the Violence Threat Risk
Assessment (VTRA), and Bird said it’s pretty invasive. “That’s why we issue that “fair notice” to
parents (so that), if this happens, there’s going to be some questions and it’s going to be
uncomfortable.”
Dealing with a threatening situation is something NGPS takes very seriously, and when dealing
with sensitive topics during the questioning period, high care is taken to keep the conversation
private. “We hold that information at the highest levels of confidentiality, and we don’t include a
lot of people. There are very few people often involved in that section of it. It’s not an easy thing
for anyone involved, especially for parents.”
Bird noted that parents don’t always take notice of the brochure or can forget about the details
mid-year. Digital options for the forms will hopefully give parents more opportunity to read them
and understand the “fair notice” process should their child be involved in a threat situation.

Another side of the coin is dealing with grief and loss. Bird said because of the relationship
between the schools, such as those in Whitecourt, where a student attends two or more schools
before they graduate, the “family of schools” can be affected in a tragedy, not just the school
where the student attended.
“As a teacher, I was involved in one of those, and I can certainly appreciate the support given to
an elementary school when something unfortunate happens at a high school. You don’t want to
extend the information too far, but at the same time, our family of school, especially with grief
and loss, is often affected,” said Bird. He said NGPS is very fortunate to have the resources it
does. “I have never worked in a situation where we have as many resources in-house.”
When dealing with an emergent situation, Bird said those “in-house” are best as they work
directly with the kids and know their behaviour baselines. “If somebody is often anxious and
upset (then) that’s their baseline, so if they’re anxious and upset in a situation, then maybe
that’s ok for that kid, and maybe we’re not as worried. But, if somebody isn’t that way normally
and then they suddenly are, that’s a sign that something really is the matter.”
With so many variables involved, having reliable programs and clear protocols at the ready
gives a school board and its staff a path forward from which to take step one, including less
focus in the rearview mirror. “Every situation is different. I may have been through two or three
hundred threat incidences in my career, but that doesn’t mean I can completely rely on that
experience. It helps, but we have to be careful to approach every situation with novelty because
it is novel, and there will be things that are different. Relying on “last time” is something that is
discouraged in our training.”
NGPS also works with outside agencies, including the RCMP, when needed. “We are very
fortunate in most jurisdictions to have a local RCMP detachment that we have positive
relationships with to the point where if something goes wrong in one of our communities, I can
immediately text whoever’s in command there and say, look, we’ve got something, and they
know exactly what we need, and they respond very, very quickly,” said Bird.
One of the last pieces to the puzzle is the debrief that follows, whether in-house or externally
led. “Sometimes, it’s appropriate to have somebody else lead it because we can be really close
and be really affected ourselves. You really need somebody who is not emotionally affected by
the situation to lead that.” Bird said dealing with trauma and threats is “one of the most
emotionally draining things” that they do as an organization. He stated that having a solid
system in place is integral to the safety of staff and students and that they focus a lot of time
and money on perfecting it.