Healing a Community: Lessons for Recovery after a Large-Scale Trauma

by Melissa Glaser

Overview

Mass trauma has made entire towns and cities into monuments of heartbreak and loss. Here is a book to guide the communal recovery.

After the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, local caregivers, civic leaders, and first responders had the daunting task of navigating emotional and physical trauma as they stitched their community back together. The recovery process takes years, and as the coordinator of the Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Team, Melissa Glaser managed the town’s response. She developed a unique set of therapeutic and transferable best practices that other communities can learn from. The impact of an intense media presence and the long-term financial needs of recovery work are also included in Healing a Community. Through heartbreaking insights, Glaser conveys the importance of meeting traumatized individuals where they are at in the process. 

Lessons learned in Newtown can be used to create a universal community mental health disaster plan so leaders, therapists, and families know what to do the next time tragedy occurs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781942094906
Publisher:	Central Recovery Press, LLC
Publication date:	02/12/2019
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Melissa Glaser, MS, LPC is a licensed professional counselor and community response leader who ran the Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Team after the Sandy Hook School shooting. Previous to that, she served as clinical and behavioral health director for several non-profit institutions. Currently, she is in private practice delivering outcome-oriented psychotherapy to individuals, families, and couples, and actively consults organizations and communities on mental health services.

Table of Contents

Foreword Amy Ream Las Vegas-based therapist xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1

Part I Parsing Community Needs

Chapter 1 Identifying Affected Communities 21

Chapter 2 Defining Trauma and Complicated Grief 41

Chapter 3 The Team Approach to Recovery and Resiliency 65

Chapter 4 Comprehensive Care Coordination 89

Chapter 5 The Politics of Recovery 113

Chapter 6 Following the Money 125

Part II Individualizing Recovery

Chapter 7 Therapies and Programming That Work 143

Chapter 8 Addressing Families Who Lost a Loved One 171

Chapter 9 Survivors Impacted on Site: Teachers, School Personnel, and Students 193

Chapter 10 Emergency Responders 209

Chapter 11 Supporting Clinicians, Clergy, and Pediatricians 225

Chapter 12 The Importance of Self Care 239

Chapter 13 Addressing Ongoing Needs 249

Chapter 14 Final Thoughts 263

Bibliography 267

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Melissa Glaser's Healing a Community serves as a road map for those who unfortunately need to address the mental, emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, and community aspects of a tragedy.—Ken Druck, PhD, Author, The Real Rules of Life Grief Coach to Sandy Hook Families

Targeting the issue of what's next? after a tragedy, Healing a Community is a groundbreaking blueprint for recovery and resiliency after large-scale trauma… a must read for anyone in municipality, emergency-planning, or incident care.—Pamela H. Pratt, LCSW

Although every tragedy and community is different, any town can learn from and prepare for crisis by utilizing the lessons learned and reported in this book. A sensitive, thoughtful guide, Melissa breaks the healing process into manageable albeit difficult steps, addressing the process, the accomplishments, and the difficulties encountered along the path to resilience.—Barbara Lavi, PhD, Clinician Specializing in Trauma and Child Psychotherapy

A beautifully honest and direct report of what happens in the therapeutic world when a community experiences a mass tragedy. I had the pleasure of working closely with Melissa in her role as the coordinator of the Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Center and I admired and appreciated her skill at navigating the challenges that came with this role.—Dorrie Carolan, Founder and Executive Director, Newtown Parent Connection

As a member of a team that treated the Sandy Hook community after the shooting, I can say Melissa Glaser’s book is well worth reading. FEMA had declared the entire town a victim, which was a first, and Healing a Community provides an insider’s view of the response at a level yet unseen.—J. Barry Mascari, EdD, LPC, LCADC, Associate Professor and Chair of the Counselor Education Department, Kean University

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

More than 300 U.S. school shootings have occurred since the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre devastated the small community of Newton, CT, in 2012. Appointed to guide a recovery and resiliency team tasked with coordinating strategies to deal with the mental, psychological, and social impact of the trauma, Glaser (former behavioral health director, Catholic Charities) brings compassion and skill to the field of therapeutic recovery and the politics of funding and grant administration in this insightful and pragmatic look at healing individuals and communities after a massive tragedy. Notable lessons include the importance of clarifying roles even among experts, monitoring expectations among agencies as well as the dynamic needs of families and individuals impacted by trauma long after the initial event, while ensuring that civic leaders are part of the dialog of healing. Glaser briefly outlines therapies and programs that can be individualized to meet an array of needs and stages of healing; however, this is by no means an in-depth study of the psychology or treatment of trauma. VERDICT: An important addition to recovery/bereavement literature that will be of interest to civic leaders and readers seeking to learn more about trauma-informed therapy, community planning, and emergency management. —Bernadette McGrath

Publishers Weekly

The director of the Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Team, formed 18 months after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, shares lessons learned in a helpful manual intended for fellow therapists and others preparing for the possibility of tragedy in their own communities. Glaser focuses on the importance of having experts trained in trauma care available not only to the most obviously impacted people, such as victims’ families, but to everyone in the community. She further stresses awareness of the needs of different groups, such as (in the case of a school shooting) teachers and students, first responders, and local therapists experiencing vicarious trauma and potential burnout. In her own Newtown experience, the problem that Glaser identifies as most central, especially given her team’s late start after waiting for funding, was of gaining the trust of a community already overwhelmed by media attention and conspiracy theorists, as well as by would-be do-gooders without direction or skills actually applicable to the situation. Mental health professionals who pick up Glaser’s practical guidebook on facing the unthinkable will find strong models for well-considered and appropriate care. (Feb.)

Melissa Glaser's Healing a Community serves as a road map for those who unfortunately need to address the mental, emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, and community aspects of a tragedy. —Ken Druck, PhD, Author, The Real Rules of Life Grief Coach to Sandy Hook Families

Targeting the issue of what's next? after a tragedy, Healing a Community is a groundbreaking blueprint for recovery and resiliency after large-scale trauma… a must read for anyone in municipality, emergency-planning, or incident care. —Pamela H. Pratt, LCSW

Although every tragedy and community is different, any town can learn from and prepare for crisis by utilizing the lessons learned and reported in this book. A sensitive, thoughtful guide, Melissa breaks the healing process into manageable albeit difficult steps, addressing the process, the accomplishments, and the difficulties encountered along the path to resilience. —Barbara Lavi, PhD, Clinician Specializing in Trauma and Child Psychotherapy

A beautifully honest and direct report of what happens in the therapeutic world when a community experiences a mass tragedy. I had the pleasure of working closely with Melissa in her role as the coordinator of the Newtown Recovery and Resiliency Center and I admired and appreciated her skill at navigating the challenges that came with this role. —Dorrie Carolan, Founder and Executive Director, Newtown Parent Connection

As a member of a team that treated the Sandy Hook community after the shooting, I can say Melissa Glaser’s book is well worth reading. FEMA had declared the entire town a victim, which was a first, and Healing a Community provides an insider’s view of the response at a level yet unseen. —J. Barry Mascari, EdD, LPC, LCADC, Associate Professor and Chair of the Counselor Education Department, Kean University

From the Publisher