The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today (6/16) that the state’s Office of School Safety (OSS) has begun training twelve regional Critical Incident Response Teams (CIRTs) around the state.
According to the DOJ, these CIRTs are designed to provide all Wisconsin K-12 public, private, charter and tribal schools with access to a regionally based team to support them if a “critical incident” ever occurs at their school.
According to a DOJ news release, the OSS considers a “school-related critical incident” to be “a sudden and unexpected incident or sequence of events which can cause trauma within a school community that may overwhelm the normal coping mechanisms of the school. School crises may be a large-scale incident, or a smaller-scale incident that may be more individualized and affects a small group of people.”
Critical incidents in schools include “threats or acts of violence, natural disasters, serious injuries to students or staff, suicide, weather-related disasters, community turmoil, intruders, an Amber Alert, and hate crimes,” according the the DOJ.
The CIRTs, which are undergoing training now, will aim to minimize the psychological impact of a school critical incident, provide resources to help stabilize the school community; work to identify individuals that may require long-term mental health services after a critical incident occurs; and offer support to school administrators and educators.
Each of Wisconsin’s 12 regional CIRTs will be made up of volunteers who are part of a multi-disciplinary team. These teams include law enforcement officers, school administrators, counselors, psychologists, social workers, nurses, teachers, school safety experts, and representatives from other related professions.
According to the DOJ, Wisconsin is the first state to implement regionally-based CIRTs on a statewide basis.
View DOJ news release.
View an article about the CIRT initiative from the May issue of our Wisconsin School News magazine.
