Crisis Bereavement Intervention Resources
for School Personnel

The documents listed below are being made available as a gesture of good will to assist school social workers and other school personal wanting to provide emergency mental health assistance to student groups in the aftermath of a student death or other critical incident.  Permission is granted by Jerry Ciffone to download and print these documents for internal use only within the school system where the tragic event has occurred.  These documents may not be distributed outside of the school system where used unless special permission has been obtained from Jerry Ciffone.  He may be contacted at: jerryciffone@u-46.org

Jerry Ciffone and several colleagues within School District U-46 Elgin, Illinois, have developed:

• general procedures for a crisis team to consider,
• a checklist of responsibilities for members of the crisis team and information for other staff
• a classroom discussion guide for teachers,
• a memo to ancillary staff that provides suggestions on how to be helpful during the crisis event,
• crisis bereavement group intervention guidelines for school personnel trained to provide group counseling,
• a group intervention guidelines outline (PDF) (doc) to take into group counseling sessions,
• a number of discussion materials that can be used to assist group leaders,
• written materials for distribution to students including an exit survey and
• suggested follow up practices with individuals and groups.
• Written materials are also available for parents
• including guidelines for counselors wanting to offer a parent support group.

If this information is being reviewed in the aftermath of a student suicide, there may now be an interest in developing a suicide prevention program. Jerry Ciffone has developed a suicide prevention program that may be viewed at www.u-46.org/sehs/spp.