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As
part of Mr. Cameron's approach to understanding the impact of
trauma, he began to develop international contacts with experts,
researchers and practitioners beginning with the majority of U.S.
sites that had experienced school shootings within the five years
prior to Taber. What he found were striking similarities between
sites around issues of initial response and longer-term recovery
and a remarkable lack of information in academic/professional
writings on the same. The majority of research emphasis had been on
the impact of trauma on individuals. As a systems therapist, Mr.
Cameron was equally interested in the impact of trauma on systems
(families, schools, communities, provinces, etc.) and why some
tragedies result in a traumatic response being confined to a single
system such as a school or community while others result in a
traumatic response that affects multiple systems (schools and
communities) hundreds and thousands of miles away.
The
realization of these critical periods led Mr. Cameron to broaden his
consultations to include the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, RCMP
Behavioural Sciences and other researchers and practitioners in the
new field of student threat assessment in the context of traumatic
aftermath of school shootings. Most international work being done
in this field of risk or threat assessment has been focusing on the
school shooters and the process they went through from initial
homicidal ideation to the carrying out of the homicide(s). Mr.
Cameron's work built upon this approach by also focusing on the
thousands of threat makers in aftermath and what we are
understanding about the relationship between traumatic events and
the activation of acting-out symptoms in these high-risk students.
The
shootings in Littleton and Taber impacted multiple systems where
many students, staff and parents across the country have been
affected by the possibility that "it could happen here
too". This reality has led most school jurisdictions and
associated professionals (police, therapists, social workers, etc.)
to look more closely at how to respond to serious crises in
schools, including violence, and how to deal with high-risk student
behaviour. The reality, however, is that there are very few
resources available in assisting schools and other professionals in
understanding the impact of trauma on systems and how to respond in
ways that allow schools and communities to deal with tragedies in a
way that fosters growth rather than divisiveness and encourages
healing rather than long-term symptom development. Likewise, there
is a growing concern regarding student threats in the aftermath and
how seriously do we take them. In response to this issue, Mr.
Cameron and Deborah Sawyer, Threat Assessment Team Leader, Horizon
School Division developed an Interim Protocol for Dealing with
High-Risk Student Behaviours. That protocol was published in the
2000 Premier's Task Force Report on Children at Risk, (of which Mr.
Cameron was a working committee member), to assist professionals in
Alberta schools to organize threat assessment teams and protocols.
A final Protocol for Dealing with High-Risk Student Behaviours has
been completed for national training in student threat assessment
entitled, Assessing Violence Potential: Protocol for Dealing with
High Risk Student Behaviour.
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