Crises at Every Level of Service

HUMN 8110 Advance d Social Work Theory and Practice Week 3 – Crisis Theory – Part 2 (CT2) AJIA MEUX: We had two students that were dating. One of them has a history of serious mental illness. And she felt as if the male student "carried" her, carried meaning, dissed her or disrespected her in front of a roomful of their peers. And when they went out for lunch she became angry. She chased him around the parking lot. He came back upstairs, went in the classroom. I was in my office and saw her walk down the hallway yelling loudly. I go outside and ask her why is she yelling, and she has a rock in her hand that's about this big, about that thick. And I said, "What are you getting ready to do with that?" And she's like, "I'm getting ready to -- you know -- bleep him up." I grab the rock out of her hand. She goes into the classroom. At that time we had a teacher who was probably six -three, six -four, a good 270. I don't know. She went in the classroom after the boy. The teacher stepped in. She became violent to ward the student. She picked up a stapler, threw it at him. It was at that point that they removed her out of the classroom. They had to physically remove her. We shut the school down, closed all the doors. We formed a triangle around her, myself and two of the staff members who she had better relationships with. We got her to the end of the hallway. All the teachers went back, but they stood by the front door. She found her way into the supply closet and sat in the supply closet for probably 20 minutes sc reaming at the same pitch and tone and intensity, rocking back and forth, scratching her face, pulling her hair. So I instructed the staff to call the mobile crisis unit. There was not anything that we were going to be able to do for her. So we called the mobile crisis unit; called the police, called her -- she had a wraparound service provider through -- she's a CFSA client -- wraparound service provider to come in so that that end of her team can be aware. And what I did is identify the person who she felt most comfortable with, who was our administrative assistant, Ms. T. I sent Ms. T into the closet with her, and Ms. T just sat there with her. Now, probably in any other crisis we would not have sent anyone into a small space with someone who was screaming . But recognizing what tool is most useful in your toolbox at that moment, I knew that that's what she needed. You know, this was a girl who was hurting because she felt like the man who she liked and was interested in her -- or who she was interested in -- was not interested in her. And in that moment she needed someone she identified as a mother or a big sister. This is a girl whose mother died, who's been in foster care the majority of her life. So that's what she looks for — female relationships with peop le-- and that's what she got that day to help bring her down. She was very angry with me when she came out of the closet because I called the police and the mobile crisis unit on her. But I stayed with her. I told her I would do it again if she lost it li ke that. But that's what we have to do. It was important to lock the school down. It was important to make sure that other students were safe. It was important to get her away from everybody else so that we could have everybody focus on their work and not focus on her. Because then we had students hanging out the door like, what's going on, what is she doing? It was important to surround her with people that she felt safe with, not people who she didn't like because then she could have become aggressive t owards them. Now, she should not have found her way into the closet, and that actually became a big deal afterwards. How did she get into the closet? Why was the closet door unlocked? I'm actually glad she did end up in the closet because it gave her a saf e space where she can get out all of the emotion that she needed to get out. Because the student was so elevated and so excited, we weren't able to put time restraints into play. She would have not been receptive if we had said, "You have 10 minutes to ge t out of the closet. You have 20 minutes to get out of the closet." At that point, when someone is at the point of bashing someone's head in with a brick, we can't put time limits on them. As far as rapid assessment is concerned, I think initially we didn 't realize how fast the situation was escalating in the classroom. That's why she got to the point where she was able to throw a stapler at someone and almost kick him before she was moved out. But the reason why I stepped in is because I had assessed that she had escalated pretty fast, and that the people that were around her didn't have the relationship that I was able to have with her at that moment. The high level of practitioner activity to me seems more like being really, really involved, and just having a number of different roles in the crisis. So you are managing the crisis, you are directing people, you are making the necessary referrals and pho ne calls. So actually, our CEO came upstairs during the whole thing and tried to get in what was going on. He had no clue what was going on. And I told him, "You can go back downstairs. We got this." When there's a crisis in the school, I become the perso n in charge. And so in that role, I had to call the mobile crisis unit, call the police, direct the teachers, make sure the student was safe, and make sure that the conference room was clean so that when everybody got in there, make sure the inciden t report is done, make sure that everybody is notified of the outcome, send the student home, have the conversation about the program director about what the consequences will be. © Laureate Education, Inc.