(PSS) — 176 participants from the Public School System’s Mental Health Program, school leaders, representatives from all public schools, and community partners from the Division of Youth Services, the Community Guidance Center, and the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention Program gathered at Saipan World Resort to undergo two core workshops from the PREPaRE School Crisis Prevention & Intervention Curriculum.
The PREPaRE curriculum has been developed by the National Association of School Psychologists or NASP as part of its decades-long leadership in supporting school crisis prevention and response capabilities at the local level.
The NASP PREPaRE curriculum provides relevant school personnel with comprehensive training on how to establish and serve on school safety and crisis response teams.
Frank Lee Borja, LEA community project manager for PSS Mental Health shared, “The strategies and materials in the PREPaRE Model serve as a critical component in the district’s efforts to streamline emergency response and crisis management while also providing an evidence-based approach to meeting the mental health needs of students in a time of crisis.”
Workshop 1, titled Comprehensive School Safety Planning: Prevention Through Recovery, taught participants how to establish and sustain comprehensive school safety efforts that attend to both physical and psychological safety.
The workshop addressed critical components needed to develop, exercise, and evaluate the safety and crisis teams and plans and conduct building vulnerability assessments.
The model also integrates school personnel and community provider roles in providing school-based crisis preparedness and response activities.
Additional topics addressed also included media/social media, communication, reunification, students with special needs, culture, and memorials.
Participants are better prepared to improve their school’s climate, student resilience, and crisis response capabilities of school personnel.
With updated research and strategies, this workshop made a clear connection between ongoing crisis prevention, mitigation, protection, and response.
Workshop 2, titled Mental Health Crisis Interventions: Responding to an Acute Traumatic Stressor in Schools, helps develop the knowledge and skill required to provide immediate mental health crisis interventions to the students, staff, and school community members who have been simultaneously exposed to an acute traumatic stressor.
The knowledge and skill developed within this session also help to build a bridge to the psychotherapeutic and trauma-informed mental health response sometimes required to address challenges associated with trauma exposure.
According to Dr. Alfred B. Ada, commissioner of education, “The skills set of a school-based team at every school site is essential for our 21st century students. School crisis response and recovery training has become a priority for the Public School System amid this pandemic. Thus, mental health issues have become an alarming need for our students and as we shift our priority, we need a curriculum training program to address this new phenomenon of our social forces, mental health. PSS has adopted the PREPaRE model training as a professional development conduit through the National Association of School Psychologists. This mental health research-based program is necessary to address our student needs. I am proud of our local school leaders and the Haligi Team as they continuously explore and address the mental health issues associated with the school public school system.”
The PREPaRE model has been implemented in school districts in all 50 states and in multiple countries, and it has proven highly effective for schools committed to improving and strengthening their school safety and crisis management capacities.
This training was made possible through funding from the CNMI PSS Project Healthy, Affirming Locally Inclusive Grant Initiative for Advancing Awareness and Resilience in Education or HALIGI AWARE.
One of Project HALIGI AWARE’s objectives is to train education staff on crisis prevention and response to interventions and to increase their ability to identify and respond immediately.
For more information regarding Project HALIGI AWARE programs and services, follow their social media pages on Instagram and Facebook or call PSS Student and Support Services at 664-3822. Office hours are from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 pm, Monday to Friday.
Two workshops from the PREPaRE School Crisis Prevention & Intervention Curriculum were conducted recently at Saipan World Resort.
The PREPaRE curriculum was developed by the National Association of School Psychologists.
“School crisis response and recovery training has become a priority for the Public School System,” Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred B. Ada said.
