For Bostonians, justice was served on April 8th, 2015, when a federal jury declared Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on 30 charges related to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The sentencing reminds many communities of that spring day two years ago, when three spectators were killed and dozens injured when a homemade pressure bomb exploded in the crowd in what some call the “worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11.”
But for the local town of Waterford, Massachusetts, it's not the bombing itself they remember with dread, but the intense manhunt that ensued for the suspected bombers. As Dr. Barbara Gortych recalls in an editorial published last week:
“In one focal area of the town, police in full gear entered homes in the middle of the night, set up posts, searched, evacuated families and eventually had a gunfight. Police helicopters constantly swarmed over the town in the search for the suspect. All of our students and the 60 percent of our faculty who live in Watertown were affected.”
For the students in this community, the task wasn’t to treat the trauma of seeing limbs and bodies scattered on an asphalt road. Rather, the trauma lay in a new world perspective—a world that could become dangerous even during the most innocent of events.
Dr. Gortych became the head of Waterford district’s first mental health department after this episode, to address the growing unrest and upset within the classrooms after the events in Boston. In fact, according to research published in the Pediatrics journal, students in the areas surrounding Boston exhibited more mental health symptoms in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing than those students who actually witnessed the event.
In light of this, Dr. Gortych believes that, “because no civilians were killed, it can be difficult and [embarrassing] for people to openly acknowledge traumatic after effects without feeling like they have made more of it than necessary.” This tendency to avoid making much over a perceived nothing leads students to turn their feelings of insecurity and fear into petty misbehavior.
Consequently, Dr. Gortych and other school officials have worked hard to create opportunities for students to vent about the events that have so shaken their lives. Classroom discussions, individual mentoring sessions, and therapy groups all have helped students come to grips with their new reality, which one student described as “[a reminder] that humans are flawed all over the world … to watch out” coupled with the need to “put it in the past and move on.”
Now, with the trial and the second year anniversary looming, the Waterford school district plays host to child trauma specialists to deal with potential opening of old wounds. These specialists once helped students affected by 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, and they now extend that same hand to those traumatized by the Boston Marathon bombing.
Dr. Gortych and the network of mental health professionals—including specially trained teachers and administrators—are prepared to monitor their student community for another three years, to deal with the aftershocks of the bombings that could still resonate throughout their school without proper care or attention.
Your school doesn’t need to be at Ground Zero for traumatic and dramatic events to send ripples of worry, fear, and anger throughout your student community. Keep an eye out for dramatic increases in student misbehavior after tragedy, and be ready to support your students both academically and emotionally, providing a safe space in a world that can seem like increasingly uncertain place.
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for School Heads Vol. 8 No. 1 Campus Safety: Who Constitutes a Threat?
ISM Monthly Update for Business Officers Vol. 11 No. 4 After a Tragedy
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 10 No. 8 Suggestions for Handling Tragic Events
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 27 No. 10 Plan for and Acknowledge the Anniversary of September 11
