Toward Successful School Crisis Intervention

Despite their best and frequently heroic efforts, school crisis intervention teams continue to find themselves unprepared for the many and varied tragedies they face. The recent school shootings in Bailey, Colorado, and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania; the tragedies of Hurricane Katrina and 9-11; and especially the everyday threats to the health of staff and students are increasingly underscoring the need for rethinking crisis intervention services in schools. This new book from Charles M. Jaksec III, a longtime school social worker and crisis intervention team member, is a call to current and future crisis intervention team members to do things differently. The book does not provide readers with a step-by-step plan for responding to a crisis from beginning to end, as so many existing books have done. Instead, it brings ten critical issues to the attention of all those currently and potentially involved in the provision of intervention services. One by one, Jaksec points out why these issues have obstructed intervention efforts, and offers suggestions for how teams can proactively and effectively address them early in, and continuously throughout, the school year. This short guide invites school counselors, school psychologists, nurses, principals, teachers, and all those who may serve on intervention teams to reevaluate their beliefs and practices. Blending relevant research with personal experience, Jaksec makes a compelling case for the issues that must be considered to make schools and students ready for the various difficulties that will confront them. An ideal book study for intervention teams, Toward Successful School Crisis Intervention offers numerous tips and discussion questions for individual and group reflection and planning.