Dealing with Grief, Anger and Fear: Resources For Teachers And Parents

US DHHS Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS)

http://www.mentalhealth.org/cmhs/emergencyservices/index.htm:

Tips for Talking About Disasters:

Tips For Teachers And Families

Questions to Help Children Talk About a Disaster provides examples of "open-ended" questions to encourage children to talk about their feelings and experiences following a disaster.

When Talking Doesn't Help: Other Ways to Help Children Express Their Feelings Following a Disaster provides ideas for helping children express themselves in ways other than talking to help them through the recovery process following a disaster.

After a Disaster: What Teens Can Do provides information for teens to help understand some of their reactions as well as others, to terrorist events. Suggestions are also provided to help ease the unfamiliar feelings related to the event.

After a Disaster: A Guide for Parents and Teachers explains how preschool age, early childhood, and adolescent children may respond to terrorist events. The link is intended for parents and teachers to be informed, recognize problems, and respond appropriately to the needs of children.

Tips For Adults:

Self-Care Tips for Dealing with Stress covers things to remember when trying to understand disaster events, signs that adults need stress management assistance, and ways to ease stress.

How to Deal With Grief deals with the basics that grief is a normal response or sorrow, emotion and confusion, leaves a person feeling numb, trembling, angry and that grief differs from depression.

National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) 

http://www.nasponline.org/NEAT/crisis_0911.html 

This website provides information to help parents, school personnel, mental health professionals, and others to assist children as they cope with the aftermath traumatic events. Topics relate to useful information on what to look for in children, what to say, and how adults can help. Some handouts are translated into other languages. See these headlines:

• Managing Strong Emotional Reactions to Traumatic Events:  
• Coping with Crisis--Helping Children With Special Needs
• Memorials/Activities/Rituals Following Traumatic Events
• Trauma and Children: A Parent Handout for Helping Children Heal

US Department of Education

http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/emergencyplan/index.html

A one-stop website that provides school leaders with information needed to plan for any emergency, including natural disasters, violent incidents, and terrorist acts for schools and communities across the U.S. For more information about what families and communities can do to be ready for an emergency, please visit www.ready.gov.

Crisis Planning Resources:

Practical Information on Crisis Planning: A Guide for Schools and Communities, March 2003, is a guide developed by the U.S. Department of Education to provide schools and communities with basic guidelines and useful ideas on how to develop emergency response and crisis management plans. Topics: Mitigation and Prevention, Preparedness, Response, Recovery, 188 pages.