Being Prepared
By Florence Womeldorf
I do not like to think about terrorism and how our country has changed since 9/11. Some of my innocence is gone. No matter how positive I want to be and how much I would like to bury my head under my pillow to all the bad things in the world, I appreciate the importance of being prepared and will approach this article from that perspective.
From a well-researched June article in Professional School Counseling, Jennifer N. Baggerly has tackled the issue of bioterrorism, and what we as school counselors need to know. Please read on, even if it is not a pleasant thought. I will attempt to share the highlights in a condensed version.
Bioterrorism, a terrorism that uses biological weapons, is nothing new. From 1340 when soldiers catapulted dead horses at a castle in Northern France to the 1760s when the British spread smallpox in Boston and Quebec by giving Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox scabs, there have been documented incidents using biological weapons. Even though 99% of terrorists choose guns and explosives for their weapons, the threat of biological toxins is very real. The categories include bacteria, viruses, rickettsias such as Q fever, and toxins such as ricin used in Japan. Many are inexpensive and easy to produce. They can be easy to disseminate from a long distance and may be odorless, tasteless, and colorless, making them therefore difficult to detect. Some are contagious, where victims can spread the affect without awareness.
That is the truly scary part. Now, for how we can help. Perhaps the biggest impact of bioterrorism is in the psychological implication - mass panic, stress disorders, anger, guilt, and sleep disorders. These by-products may have the longest negative impact on our children and their families.
First responders such as police and firefighters would have the responsibility of securing the scene. The incident commander from these ranks would be our chief in these matters. Hopefully, we all have school crisis plans in place. Our primary role will be to address the psychosocial needs of students and staff. The six Cs of disaster mental health were listed as calmness, common sense, compassion, collaboration, communication, and control of self.
We must first take care of ourselves, making sure that we are in a safe, protected area. After establishing our personal safety, we can then help insure that credible information about events is being received. We are responsible for making sure that people receive information in a suitable, understandable format. Our third task is to begin defusing. We make contact with students and staff, helping to stabilize the situation. Let them express their thoughts and feelings and educate them about normal responses to trauma.
Provide positive coping strategies that students and staff can use immediately. The BASIC Ph includes, beliefs, affect, social, imagination, cognition, and physical. Beliefs can be addressed appealing to spiritual rituals and works of hope, while the affective can be addressed with bibliotherapy, play and art therapy, and similar techniques.
The social category strategies include social support systems, classroom meetings, role-playing, and family gatherings to help with coping. Imagination issues will entail creativity, symbolism, psychodramas and the like. For cognition, include reading and problem solving while the physical may be aerobic exercise, games, or relaxation techniques.
Help families to be reunited as soon as possible and return to normal routines and the appropriate support system. We may need to be proactive rather than just offering an open door. Children will need the opportunity to talk and express their feelings.
Assess students for mental health needs as soon as you can.
By being prepared, we help to create a safe environment and increase our knowledge and skills in the area of bioterrorism. We can provide counseling and guidance lessons on managing anxiety and cooperating with authority figures in readiness for such an event. By increasing our knowledge of bioterrorism and seeking training to develop intervention skills, our confidence will increase and we may be much better able to deal with the crisis at hand.