Improving Crisis Response in Schools: A Case Study

School crises are daunting for professional school counselors (PSCs) because such events are unanticipated, and it is challengng to prepare for the circumstances. Regardless, expectations are that PSCs are the first line of support when a crisis event strikes a school community The author proposes a crisis intervention model and evaluates three school crisis intervention programs: Nonviolent Crisis Intervention ® and Prepare Training® (CPI, 2010), P-SAEF (Wachter, Minton, & Clemens, 2008), and School Crisis and Survival Guide (Petersen & Straub, 1991). In addition, the author shares a school shooting incident as a case example of PSCs responding to a major crisis.