Read Aloud the Text Content
This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.
Text Content or SSML code:
Stress Management Similar to risk management, stress management training will start with a baseline measurement of the environment, resources, and abilities.This includes assessing the staff’s current stress levels, inventorying available support systems, and assessing current coping abilities. To assess current stress I think an open-question survey with some of the following questions should be given to participants: how stressed do you feel of the possibility of a shooting, do you feel like you know what to do in the case of a shooting, and do you have knowledge of how to cope after a shooting? For resources, I believe the person and community-related resources can be uncovered through additional questions within the survey above. As for organizational resources, I believe this would need to be inventoried and documented (L 82-86). Once this information has been collected and analyzed, specific goals can be made, However, generally speaking, the goals would be to make the staff feel like they have higher competency and capacity to handle a shooting situation, solidify trust between the staff and crisis-leaders, and learn adaptive coping strategies for stress (F, 244, L103-104, H&S, 273). The stress management training would be three, intertwined sets of hybrid informational and practical learning. The first set begins with an informational lesson on the steps required during an active shooter event. This would be followed by the second set of information, which would be a lesson on possible environments they may encounter during and after a shooting (H&S 273-275). This would then be followed by a third set, which would be a lesson about the symptoms of stress and the psycho-phiso relationship the mind and body have (H&S, 273). After these three informational lessons, I would recommend two types of practical exercises for skill acquisition. The first set of exercises would be emotionally focused, teaching them regulating activation and cognitive control (F, 181, H&S 276-277). Firstly, I would expose them to a stressful video (but not too extreme). Afterwards I would do “monkey-see-monkey-do” type of exercises to familiarize the participants with their autogenic coping mechanisms, such breathing exercises (H&S, 276). Likewise, I would have participants practice cognitive restructuring, to cope with emotional and cognitive reactions, by having them rephrase statements and questions that are possibly being thought of by the people in the video (H, 314-319). This first set of exercises would be to practice the third set of theory. Once this first exercise set is complete, I would move on to problem-focused practical lessons (F, 164, 245). Here there would be a series of exercises. First, those which have no additional stress stimulus, so that participants can practice the first skill set, the steps in an active shooter event. Once these skills are somewhat automated, I would begin to add graded amounts of stress stimuli to the scenarios to have participants practice applying their first and third sets of theory (H&S 277-279). Finally, once training fidelity has been reached, I would initiate guided error training to familiarize them with improvisation skills and have them train all three skill sets concurrently (H&S 277). Evaluation would involve participant feedback and reflective discussion. To evaluate the training I would have participants fill a closed-question, likert scale questionnaire about their thoughts on the course (H&S 253). Afterwards, to measure their learning, I think I would have them answer the same questionnaire as they did at the beginning of the training, and compare answers. Likewise I would host a ‘lessons learned’ discussion (L, 122). It is through these reflections, and reflection on future refresher-scenarios and/or events, that school staff can realize what efforts and resources need to be adjusted to aid in stress management. Finally, in the event that a school experiences a shooting, I think it is imperative that the staff report back on how well the emotional, cognitive, and somatic stress management techniques they learned from the first practical exercise helped them in coping with the trauma afterwards.