An Open Letter to the KidsPeace Community

Friends:

We at KidsPeace join all Americans in mourning the loss of life in last week’s school shooting tragedy in Georgia. When such events happen, people often look to us for advice on how to process their grief and anxiety – and perhaps more importantly, how to help our children do the same. Our organization has a number of resources available to support parents and caregivers amid these difficult times:

• Information resources like Healing Magazine, the KidsPeace.org blog, Conversations with KidsPeace podcasts and Ask the Experts at KidsPeace series are designed to share our mental and behavioral healthcare expertise so that it can be helpful to individuals in theirdaily lives. For example, we’ve put together a blog post with some tips on talking to kids when large-scale tragic events happen.

• For older children and teenagers, KidsPeace offers TeenCentral.com – a web-based confidential and anonymous resource with information about processing anxiety and stress, as well as the opportunity to ask specific questions and get responses from KidsPeace therapeutic professionals.

• In our home area of the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania our outpatient clinics offer free walk-in crisis assessments, in which families can have a child in crisis evaluated and a safety plan created with next steps for the child’s care. In North Carolina, The Hope Center for Youth and Family Crisis offers an innovative “behavioral health urgent care” model to assess kids in need and determine the best path forward for their treatment.

• And our outpatient services and school-based mental health clinics provide the next level of care so that families can be sure their loved one receives the therapeutic attention they need.

While we devote these resources to address the aftermath of tragic events, we also are working on developing and implementing strategies to prevent violence and mass shootings. Thanks to a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, KidsPeace has been providing trauma-informed therapy and case management to those in our community who have either engaged in violence or witnessed it.

An important part of our violence prevention activities is the 26th KidsPeace National Conference: “Keeping Our Kids Safe: Addressing Gun Violence on a Systems and Individual Level.” Scheduled for Wednesday, October 9 at our Orchard Hills Campus, the event will feature Dr. Peter Langman, an internationally recognized expert on the psychology of school shooters, along with panel discussions with KidsPeace experts, law enforcement and community leaders on violence prevention strategies. The conference is free to attend, and you can learn more about registering for the event here..

I believe we all share in the hope that one day the kinds of therapeutic support to help our kids cope with these tragedies will not be needed. Until that day comes, KidsPeace will be ready to act in service to our mission: to provide Hope, Help and Healing to children, adults and those who love them.

With best regards,

Michael W Slack
President and CEO

An Open Letter to the KidsPeace Community

Michael Slack