Survivors of school shootings meet in Worcester County to discuss school safety
As the nation tries to forge a path forward after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, victims of other school shootings are trying to do what they can to help the country heal and prepare so another tragedy doesn't happen.
In Worcester County, some of those survivors were on hand Tuesday to talk to school officials and local first responders to share their experiences.
Survivors educated Tuesday's audience about how important it is to both be prepared for school shootings, and to know how to recover and move forward after a shooting happens.
Lisa Hamp, a Virginia Tech survivor said, "So it's just getting them thinking about what actions can we take beforehand for active shooter prevention as well as the crisis recovery."
Some of the top prevention tips from Tuesday's conference included: if you see something, say something, know your surroundings and escape routes, communicate with other school officials on how to prepare and have a good relationship with your local law enforcement.
Many of these tips came from the shooting survivors and their families who learned first hand what steps can help.
Michele Gay, a Sandy Hook teacher and parent who lost her daughter said, "I saw that there were lots of things that we could share with other communities so that our hindsight would be their foresight and they would never have to experience what we experienced."
The survivors came from places like Sandy Hook, Columbine and Virginia Tech.
Each survivor discussed the hardships they faced both during and after their shootings occurred in an effort to help officials in Worcester County learn from their tragedy.
Gay said, "You know, it's a long road. I think that is what you're going to hear today from all of our speakers, that recovery is a lifelong process. There's no date on the calendar that you can aim for and hope to get to and then things will be magically okay. You are forever changed by your experiences."
The speakers stressed how important it is to have an action plan to help people after they survive a traumatic event, such as a school shooting.
Hamp said, "It's about crisis, recovery, trauma, and the impact and the PTSD that so many people are walking away with."
Overall, Worcester County officials say they were honored to host and learn from these speakers.
Steve Prince, the School Safety Director said, "We hope that the unthinkable never happens in Worcester county, but it gives us time to have a thought process for how we would react and how we would also rebuild and recover if an incident occurred in the community."
One of the speakers at that conference, Michele Gay, helped set up and organize this event.
After Michele lost her daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting, she founded a program with another parent called Safe and Sound Schools.
This is a non-profit dedicated to empowering communities to improve school safety through discussion, collaboration, planning and sharing of information, tools and resources.
Tuesday's conference was part of the "Maryland Initiative with Safe and Sound Schools".
They are now in their second year and Michele says it is all thanks to partnership from other programs.
"With funding from the BFG Foundation and in partnership with the Maryland Center for Safe Schools, Safe and Sound schools does this tour annually now across the state of Maryland, so this was one of the communities we wanted to get to and the response has been amazing," Gay said.
We are told they will be traveling to Carroll County for their next conference.
If you are interested in learning more about prevention measures and crisis intervention, you can go to http://www.NASPonline.org/prepare and http://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources/school-safety-and-crisis
