Guidance and Placement Services
Critical Incidents
Students often encounter personal circumstances, concerns, or problems that may threaten to interfere with their healthy academic, career, and personal/social development. When this happens, professional school counselors respond to assist students through implementation of the Responsive Services component of the Comprehensive Guidance Program.
Occasionally, incidents of a more calamitous nature occur that require utilization of additional help and resources to assist students in coping with the incident.
Because these critical incidents are varied in nature, professional school counselors, in order to provide assistance, need to be prepared to respond through training and development of resources to handle crisis situations that occur in the school and within the community.
One way in which counselors in Missouri have been assisted is through the work of the Critical Incidence Response Committee of the Missouri School Counselor Association (MSCA). This committee provides information, offers training opportunities, and shares appropriate resources with other counselors. To contact the chairperson by e-mail, click on the link:
- MSCA Critical Incidence Response Committee - Jennifer Boyer, Chairperson
There are many other resources that counselors can access to assist students and others in coping and dealing with different types of critical incidents. The following Web links contain multiple resources in critical incident areas:
- National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Crisis Resources
- Department of Mental Health (DMH) Suicide Materials
- Department of Mental Health (DMH) Disaster Readiness
- Suicide Prevention Resource Center