Mental Health & SEL Resources for Healing from School Shooting Trauma

By Zainab Cheema 

As the national heartbreak from the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde continues, educators and families are confronted with how to respond to an all too familiar trauma. As a mother wrote in the wake of the 2019 Denver charter school shooting, “I worry that every day I kiss my kids goodbye, it will be for the last time.” Now, educators, families and students are confronting yet again the maelstrom of fear, distress and paralyzing terror around gun violence in our educational spaces. What can we do to gain resilience for ourselves and others?

In this post, I’ll give you mental health and SEL resources that educators and families can use to relieve trauma (their students’ and their own) around school and classroom safety. On the ninth anniversary of Sandy Hook, the mother of one of the young victims talked to Chalkbeat about what communities can do to support victims and survivors of school shootings. “It’s important to offer techniques and treatment related to trauma and make it available to everyone in the community, even those who are not intimately impacted as these events can cause others to experience trauma,” she said. In this spirit, here are some mental health and SEL strategies that you can use to help heal yourself and others looking to you for guidance.

1. Limit Exposure to Media and Channel Emotions

The first step towards channeling your emotional reaction is to limit your exposure to media (including social media). While it’s important to empathize with the victims and survivors of this tragedy, sustained exposure to media coverage can prove to be triggering. Impairing your mental health will not help the individuals and families affected by this tragedy. It’s also important to know that switching off the media does not mean mentally unplugging from the issue and withdrawing into numbness. In fact, studies show that when adults turn to maladaptive coping skills such as avoidance and disassociation out of a protective instinct, it can have the opposite effect by getting transmitted to children or students.

Instead, consider art- and writing-based approaches to channel and narrativize your students’ and children’s emotions. As Lisa Lopez Levers has discussed in Trauma Counseling: Theories and Interventions, art and writing can also be incorporated in more formal therapy protocols, such as CBITS or TF-CBT counseling practices. CBITS is a group therapy model that takes place in school settings and involves a circle of the same aged students undergoing guided and peer-centered therapy that can help them to confront their buried fears and emotions. TF-CBT involves individual therapy and centers around helping the child creating a trauma narrative in which they describe their experiences. Once the child is finished with the narrative, they reread the story with the counselor to first identify additional details about what they could see, hear, smell or feel. The sensory information usually helps to surface additional thoughts and feelings. Having guided the child to create their trauma narrative, the counsellor helps the child to identify and process cognitive distortions about their experiences. If any of these approaches sound helpful, research the resources offered by your local school or community to see if such programs are being offered and if they would be a good fit.

2. Practice Self-Care So That You Can Help Others

While teachers, parents and supervisors are in charge of the social and emotional learning of their students and children, they must remember not to neglect their own mental health needs so that they are in the right space to help others. I’ve written about this issue before, but it’s a serious oversight that the national conversation on school shootings mostly revolves around how parents and teachers can help students cope without considering what parents and teachers may need on their end to deal with their heightened stress and emotions. The teacher burnout phenomenon is showing us that neglecting adults from the conversation and resources around healing and care will backfire in a serious way.

As a starter, kudos to Teacher.com for creating this list of 50 resources to help teachers with their own mental health needs. If you are an educator or parent who is experiencing heightened stress because of the Robb Elementary School tragedy (or even generally), turn to this list and consider investing in one of the mental health apps commend; contacting one of the mental health organizations for counseling and weekly check ins; subscribing to one of the educational and mental health podcasts; or choosing from inspirational and educational content on how to manage yourself when everyone expects to you to be managing things for them.

3. Take Proactive Action

Taking positive action about the issue of gun violence and mental health resources can help you to channel the anger and helplessness that you may be feeling into positive action. There is nothing as cathartic as action, especially when you balance it with mental health checks and support (see above). There are many different organizations and bills working on mental health  issues surrounding gun violence, but consider this initiative as a first step:

Support the HEAL Act: This legislation was introduced by Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow in March 2022 to expand the federal resources providing mental health assistance for students affected by school shootings. As Randy Crouch notes in his article, expanded federal funds for mental health will mean that schools will be able to hire mental health counselors psychiatrists and social workers to support teachers, staff and students when school shooting tragedies occur. The bill was introduced after the tragic shooting at Oxford High School by Ethan Crumbley in November 2021. “The mental needs of adults and children who have experienced trauma from violence are unique and urgent. The community of Oxford experienced this kind of trauma when the High School community was shattered by unspeakable violence,” said Senator Stabenow. “This bill will ensure that students in Oxford and others schools across our country receive the critical services they need.”

And most essentially, consider informing yourself of your state’s legislation on gun permits and sales. This will guide you to support organizations and petitions that advocate for changing them on behalf of public and school safety.   

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