Factors giving rise to school shootings
School shootings refer to attack at educational institutions, which involve the use of firearms. These incidents often lead to death and injury to four or more people and are categorsied as a kind of mass shootings. According to research studies, there are several factors that can give rise to such incidents that involve school shootings (Böckler et al., 2013).
Such deadly school shooting events have been found to create large effects on the minds of children, who are a witness to these incidents. This assignment will illustrate the group leadership and counseling approaches that have been adopted for such young witnesses, to help them recover from the trauma. It will also elaborate on the associated legal and ethical issues and will futher explain the influence of cultural factors in this context.
Although most students and children, who are a witness to school shooting incidents are resilient and bounce back after these difficult incidents, the events are found to interrupt their sense of safety and order. The intensity of the incidents often overwhelms the children. There are a range of interventions that the counselors taht offer or employ, with the aim of creating a positive and safe school environment. This will directly reduce the suffering of the students who have been a witness (Bondü et al., 2013). Evidences have established the importance of addressing the coping skills of the children, which in turn teaches them to struggle with the trauma and suggests proactive ways to cope with the thoughts, emotions and feelings. Witnessig incidents that involve school shootings often lead to psychological, emotional and physical problems (Elklit & Kurdahl, 2013). Leadership approaches also focus on forming effective partnership with the parents of these children, to help them cope with the trauma (Flannery, Modzeleski & Kretschmar, 2013).
These major effects include creating conducting mental health screenings, utilizing threat assessments, and partnering with the mental health agencies. Young witnesses to school shootings often find it difficult to balance their intellectual and emotional maturation. Researchers have provided evidences for the fact that appropriate counseling therapies that are able to provide reassurance and satisfactory answers to the children regarding their doubts on their safety, and the effect of such events on their daily life, are most effective (Dumitriu, 2013). Major counseling theories that are implemented in such settings include behavioural theory, humanistic approach and a holistic/integrative theory. The counselors utilise behavioural theory based on the belief that each kind of behaviour is learned. This acts as a significant platform to understand the impact of these shootings on emotional and cognitive factors (Turunen et al., 2014). The counselors also adopt a humanistic approach to provide assistance to the students to achieve their highest potential. Furthermore, this approach has shown benefits in self-growth of the individual and helps the children to embark on a path of self-actualisation.
Leadership approaches for young witnesses
The therapies and leadership approaches focus on creating a safe and comfortable environment where efforts are taken to help the children know that such incidents are incredibly rare (Orcutt et al., 2014). Family cohesion also forms an essential part of the approaches, where the operational links and relationships between family members help the children to cope with their trauma. These children are also benefitted by trauma-informed care services that work with the aim of recogising the widespread impact of the trauma that the children have been subjected to (Cornett & Bratton, 2014). These services seek to actively precent or eliminate re-traumatization by facilitating the service providers and the parents to respond and recognize the needs of the children. Children, having witnessed school shootings often display poor social skills, academic struggle, heightened aggression and engage in risky behaviour in the long run (Van der Kolk, 2017). Establishing effective interaction with these children helps them to cope with the triggers, by providing support on the emotional regulation skills and modifying their behavior. Transformational leadership is commonly exhibited by the teachers and the counselors, who demonstrate adequate leadership skills to idealise their influence, stimulate the intellect and inspire or motivate the children to cope with the traumatic event. This sets high standards for emulation. The inspirational motivation also provides the children with a clear vision for their goals and objectives (Keung & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2013). Individual consideration of the preferences and wants of each children provides appropriate growth opportunities. Thus, it can be deduced from most research studies that effective counseling strategies, which when applied to help the children brings about their moral maturity and also helps in moral upliftment (Bardeen, Kumpula & Orcutt, 2013).
There are a range of ethical issues that are faced while counseling minors. According to the standards of the ACA Code of Ethics, maintaining welfare of the clients is the primary responsibility of the counselors. The primary responsibility is to respect the dignity of the clients (A.1.a). Failure to adhere to the standard A.1.b can prevent maintain appropriate documentation of the patients, thereby giving rise to ethical issues (American Counseling Association, 2014). The counselors are responsible to take adequate steps that will help them ensure appropriate documentation.
Owing to their young age, the children are unable to provide informed consent, before participating in the therapy sessions or counseling practices. Furthermore, legal issues can also crop up if the confidentialty of the clients are not maintained (A.2.e). Further issues pertain to screening prospective participants, whose goals and needs are compatible with that of the group (A.9.a). A breach of the codes of ethics that illustrate the need for respecting the rights of the clients and their family might also lead to severe legal consequences (B.1) (American Counseling Association, 2014).
Counseling methods for young witnesses
The need for multicultural counseling refers to the ability of all professionals to approach the counseling session, through a context of the children’s perspectives and opinions. With the aim of providing appropriate services that will help the students cope up with the mass shootings that occur in their school, there is a need to address bigotry that reflects the hate that is pervasive in the present society. The counselors and therapists should be aware of their own cultural bias and values, thereby recognizing their limits of practice (Dutton, White & Fogarty, 2013). The cultural and racial heritage should be recognized, in addition to the effects of racism, discrimination and racism against the witnesses (Sandberg et al., 2014). An awareness of the worldview of the children will also influence the coping skills. Emotional reactions to the specific ethnic groups or races play an important role in familiarizing with culturally appropriate responses. Hence, it is essential for the school counselors to recognize the child’s culture and race, which might affect the coping strategies.
Furthermore, the religious views and of a child might also affect the way by which mass shooting incidents affect them emotionally (Ratts et al., 2016). Hence, cultural competence must be demonstrated by the counselors to recognize the appropriate approach that might create an impact on the children. Hence, there is a need to engage in effective conversation with the children in a way that transcends nationality, race andeliminates prejudice.
Conclusion
To conclude, events where children have been a witness to mass shooting incidents at their schools create major psychobioloigical effects that affect their behaviour. Furthermore, these violence also results in an impairment in the educational experiences of the children and also led to poor mental development. The primary group leadedership approaches are focused on providing assistance to the children to recognse their stressors. Furthermore, the leadership approaches also focus on helping the children to learn possible ways by which they can cope with the stressors. Thus, the major counseling approaches are beneficial in preventing the children to respond or react in volatile ways towards school shooting incidents. Working within the scope of practice of the ethical standards, and recognizing the religious and ethnic beliefs of the children that might play an impact in modifying their beliefs, is integral.
References
American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics. Retrieved from https://www.counseling.org/resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf.
Bardeen, J. R., Kumpula, M. J., & Orcutt, H. K. (2013). Emotion regulation difficulties as a prospective predictor of posttraumatic stress symptoms following a mass shooting. Journal of anxiety disorders, 27(2), 188-196.
Böckler, N., Seeger, T., Sitzer, P., & Heitmeyer, W. (2013). School shootings: Conceptual framework and international empirical trends. In School shootings (pp. 1-24). Springer, New York, NY.
Bondü, R., Scheithauer, H., Leuschner, V., & Cornell, D. G. (2013). International perspectives on prevention and intervention in school shootings. In School shootings (pp. 343-362). Springer, New York, NY.
Cornett, N., & Bratton, S. C. (2014). Examining the impact of child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) on family functioning. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 40(3), 302-318.
Dumitriu, C. (2013). Crisis Management in School Shooting Situations: The School—A Forgotten Factor in the Equation. In School Shootings (pp. 441-476). Springer, New York, NY.
Dutton, D. G., White, K. R., & Fogarty, D. (2013). Paranoid thinking in mass shooters. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(5), 548-553.
Elklit, A., & Kurdahl, S. (2013). The psychological reactions after witnessing a killing in public in a Danish high school. European journal of psychotraumatology, 4(1), 19826.
Flannery, D. J., Modzeleski, W., & Kretschmar, J. M. (2013). Violence and school shootings. Current psychiatry reports, 15(1), 331.
Keung, E., & J. Rockinson-Szapkiw, A. (2013). The relationship between transformational leadership and cultural intelligence: A study of international school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 51(6), 836-854.
Orcutt, H. K., Bonanno, G. A., Hannan, S. M., & Miron, L. R. (2014). Prospective trajectories of posttraumatic stress in college women following a campus mass shooting. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 27(3), 249-256.
Ratts, M. J., Singh, A. A., Nassar?McMillan, S., Butler, S. K., & McCullough, J. R. (2016). Multicultural and social justice counseling competencies: Guidelines for the counseling profession. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 44(1), 28-48.
Sandberg, S., Oksanen, A., Berntzen, L. E., & Kiilakoski, T. (2014). Stories in action: The cultural influences of school shootings on the terrorist attacks in Norway. Critical studies on terrorism, 7(2), 277-296.
Turunen, T., Haravuori, H., Pihlajamäki, J. J., Marttunen, M., & Punamäki, R. L. (2014). Framework of the outreach after a school shooting and the students perceptions of the provided support. European journal of psychotraumatology, 5(1), 23079.
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2017). Developmental Trauma Disorder: Toward a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric annals, 35(5), 401-408.
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