Jeremiah’s killing became the catalyst for the city to “move a lot faster,” setting the tone for a process that has now been used at Patterson and Edmondson-Westside high schools, which also lost students to gun violence this year.
#Trauma responses how to
Scott, a Mervo alumnus who knew Jeremiah, also ensured some recreational centers had activities ready for students who might have needed a distraction outside school.Įven before the Mervo shooting, city officials were discussing how to better coordinate responses to violence, Scott said. People are here because they care.”Īlthough the system had a grief counseling process in place at the time of Jeremiah’s death, Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott knew Mervo’s size would demand additional resources, which he moved to make available. Principal Tricia Lawrence hugs a student in the hallway of Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School toward the end of a February school day. Mark Mason, the victim services associate director for the office, praised activities such as swimming lessons or summer camp as a form of therapy. The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement often works with families affected by violence. “It’s a number of different techniques that you might have to utilize to get young people engaged, rather than the normal, ‘Come and sit down and talk to me.’ Because that’s just not, that’s just not working,” Archibald said. She’s tried to use games and icebreakers to encourage more participation in class.Īrchibald said one useful exercise is having students examine rap lyrics as a way to break down their own feelings. Galloway said her students have been “very disengaged” from their schoolwork throughout the year. “Some people don’t like talking by themselves,” Stokes said.Įxperts might get students to open up through less traditional methods, such as art, music and play therapy.
Still, as the school year comes to a close, some teens are reluctant to revisit the memory of what happened to Jeremiah and how it affected them, grasping instead for happier thoughts.Īnthony Stokes, an 18-year-old junior, said students who don’t take advantage of in-school counseling services might be more open to talking during group sessions or informal class gatherings. So are the canceled classes, the arrival of counselors and, sometime later, the metal detectors. “We start by asking the youth, ‘If you could create something and you’d consider showing up, what would it look like?’”įor some Mervo students, Jeremiah’s death is easy to recall. “The adults can come up with wonderful solutions that sound fabulous to us and not have a single youth show up,” she said. Breaking through the disconnect between students and grief support would require leaders to ask teens what they need, Wagner said. Wagner and her team, who were stationed at the Waverly YMCA in the days following the shooting, were expecting more people than the handful who showed up.Ĭhildren are resilient, she said, but they need support to maintain that resilience. “When something becomes normalized, people no longer recognize when there’s a trauma,” said Ginna Wagner, executive director for Baltimore Child and Adolescent Response System. Some community partners say the groundswell of support after Jeremiah’s death did not draw as many students and families as expected. Grief services such as counseling sessions for staff members are typically handled by the district’s office of human capital. The Baltimore Teachers Union this spring submitted a proposal to the school board that in the event of a school tragedy, instruction would cease for two days and educators would have the option during that time to come to school or recover at home. “That would have helped us regroup as teachers,” Galloway said. Latheena Galloway, a cosmetology teacher at Mervo who has been there since 2016, said she would have liked to see a more delayed return to the building. “We eliminated the ‘business as usual’ idea and focused more on healing,” Lawrence said in a February interview. On what would have been the first day of classes following the shooting, students were instead invited back to campus for optional grief counseling sessions. City school administrators traveled to the campus to coordinate mental health services for students and staff, calling for help from organizations such as Baltimore Child and Adolescent Response System, a program affiliated with Catholic Charities of Baltimore the Waverly YMCA and Baltimore Crisis Response Inc.
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