Training Equips Heartland and District Staff with Crisis Response Skills

April 11, 2011

Cheri Lovre, second from left, assists district staff in creating a sound crisis plan.

Fortunately for us in Iowa, we have not experienced some of the massive crises other states have experienced, although we’ve seen our share of natural disasters in recent years. No matter what the event, crafting a plan in the midst of a crisis is never successful.

Heartland AEA recently offered crisis planning training as an opportunity for districts to review and improve their current crisis plans before they need to use them. The training consisted of an overview session last fall, one day working with local law enforcement and emergency personnel and two days of crisis response training. The latter was lead by Cheri Lovre, director of the Crisis Management Institute.

Lovre is a leader in her field with over 30 years of experience in crisis prevention and response, grief, trauma and many other related topics. She has personally provided site crisis response for such events as the 9/11 attacks, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the shooting at Virginia Tech.

Through her experiences, she has developed a philosophy and specific approach to how to respond to different types of crisis situations ranging from the aftermath of student and staff deaths and natural disasters to traumatic events and teacher-student sexual misconduct.

“I had not heard of Cheri Lovre prior to this training, and I was completely impressed with the information she shared with our group,” said Linda Carroll, Director of Teaching & Learning at Woodward-Granger Schools. “The experiences and stories shared made what she was communicating to us believable.”

Ten school districts brought teams to the training with their current district crisis plans in tow. Plans were at different levels of completeness and for most, their plan was a compliance document that lived on a shelf. District teams learned the unique requirements of survivors of trauma and were able to try hands-on experiences of different crisis scenarios.

“We thought we had our crisis plan finalized and ready to go,” Carroll said. “However, with the rich additional information we learned at the training, we need to add many things to our plan we never thought of including.”

“My team came away with very positive comments on the training,” commented Brett Gibbs, superintendent of Audubon Schools. “It wasn’t what we were expecting, but it was exactly what we needed for our crisis management plan.”

One of Lovre’s suggestions was to set up regional “flight” teams. Flight teams are made up of staff from neighboring schools, school psychologists, counselors and any other community members who help manage the aftermath of a crisis as the affected school focuses on managing the day-to-day running of the school.

“No small school has the resources necessary to do that job on their own,” said Gibbs. “A regional organization just makes sense.”

There is an interest in generating regional flight teams within the Heartland area. Several members of Heartland’s Coordinating Council for Learning Supports team as well as regional staff attended Lorve’s training.

“We have the training and the framework and will have conversations this spring as to how we as an agency might move forward with flight team implementation,” explained Sue Schirmer (Professional Learning and Leadership Consultant/JO) who was instrumental in organizing the crisis training.

“Hopefully crisis plans never have to be used, but realistically, the chances are great they will be,” Schirmer said. “This training better informed us as to how we can respond to the needs of our districts.”

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Heartland AEA is an intermediate education agency serving 11 counties and 136,000 students in Central Iowa. The Agency is committed every day to helping people grow, develop and learn.