Throughout the past year, much of society has relied on the expertise of health professionals to manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus and all of its’ variants. Mental Health professionals have likewise been relied upon to manage the growing strain of chronic stress and its’ variants on individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. Part of this stress has been due to both prolonged and intermittent quarantining.
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Texas School Shooting: Screening in the Aftermath
We were planning to release a version of this E-Alert next week as a guide to triaging Threat Assessment cases for the remainder of this academic year but the tragedies in Buffalo, New York and Texas have accelerated it. As many of you are aware, we released an E-Alert a little over six months ago highlighting the 500% increase in VTRA cases, during the Fall of this academic year, compared to VTRA cases in the Fall of 2019 (prior to the pandemic). With professional resources being strained and some communities no longer supporting school resource or youth officer programs, the flow of necessary information for violence prevention efforts has been impaired in some areas.
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Increase in VTRA Cases Across the Country
“It’s Not Just You”
In earlier communications from CTIP we highlighted that due to the lingering effects of quarantine (“Impaired Closeness-Distance Cycle”), some students would be so relieved to make in-person reconnections with school staff and peers that symptom development to the pressures of the pandemic would be minimal in the 2020-2021 academic year. This period is what we refer to as a “delayed response”.
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Hate Crimes and Racism: VTRA and TES Applications to the Tragedies in London and Kamloops
During the pandemic we focused attention on the effects of quarantine and how the “Impaired Closeness-Distance Cycle” would contribute to abuse dynamics within some homes because of unrelenting closeness without the reprieve of occasional distance to lower family anxiety. The opposite side of that coin was that quarantine had a temporarily and artificially positive effect on larger Canadian society: it also created distance between those who hate and their potential targets. We would say that some societal conflicts were frozen in place but with things opening up and the weather becoming warmer, distance has been replaced with proximity and possibilities to renew prior conflicts thus intensifying justification for violent acting out.
File: PDF Hate Crimes and Racism: VTRA and TES Applications to the Tragedies in London and Kamloops
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Interim Guidelines: A Whole Community Response to Post-Pandemic Mental Health
While the pandemic still weighs heavy on the shoulders of many, the growing availability of
vaccines has led to measured optimism from some that COVID-19 will come to an end.
Governments, workplaces, helping agencies and educational systems are beginning to deliberate and hopefully pose this crucial question: What will post-pandemic functioning look like? -
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Anniversary Reaction to COVID-19: What Every Professional Needs to Know
The first case of COVID-19 diagnosed in Canada was on January 25th, 2020. One year later media headlines on January 25th, 2021 emphasized it has been a whole year since that occasion as if it was a moment of awe. But the country was probably in more of a state of denial than awe in early 2020.
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Canadian VTRA Trained Professionals: Implications from Unrest in America
Tyler Merbler As the predictable escalation in Washington D.C. is currently playing out, we want to remind VTRA-trained professionals and teams that this American experience that we are observing is also an international experience, to which we are also subject.
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Second Wave: Matching Resources to Risk During Remote Learning
The first wave was new to us all and some figured out how to accommodate it but with the second wave, those we are concerned about know how difficult it was and feel they cannot survive a lengthy quarantine again. The best intervention that schools can provide is to be thoughtful and creative about how to stay connected to our students and their families while educating remotely.
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Trauma-Informed Approach to Assessing the Creation, Organization and Utility of School Resource (Liaison) Officer Programs
These guidelines were developed to assist school boards, school district/division leaders, and police leaders in collaboration with the broader school community (students, parents and caregivers), as well as community leaders, to plan for a trauma-informed assessment of School Resource Officer (SRO) Programs. In particular, they were created to openly address the traumatic impact of systemic racism and offer a process that can compassionately foster truth telling and the beginnings of systemic change.
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EXTENDED CRITICAL PERIOD: Racism, Prejudice and A Worldwide Pandemic
Since the pandemic reached the shores of North America we have released several E-Alerts that have combined our understanding of how high-profile trauma influences human systems including how it increases violence potential. In the field of Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA™) we have always said that “no one can engage in a major act of violence unless they feel justified: everyone needs to move on a pathway of justification first.