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When an incident occurs, the Traumatic incident team can support a school’s management of the situation.
It may also be helpful to think about the following areas when managing student disciplinary proceedings.
Traumatic incidents
Not all stand-downs and suspensions would be considered traumatic incidents.
Examples of traumatic incidents may include:
- the death or serious injury of a child or young person, staff member or whānau | family member
- students witnessing serious injury or death of a child, young person, staff member or whānau | family members
- threats to the safety of students or staff, including the presence at the school of an individual behaving in a dangerous or threatening manner
- a lost or missing child, young person or staff member
- floods, fires, earthquakes or other community crisis or natural disaster.
Traumatic incident planning
Your school will have policies in place to cope with a traumatic incident, should it occur. Ministry of Education staff can assist with traumatic incident planning. Traumatic incident plans should include what to do in the event of violence at school, student suicide, the unexpected death of a student or teacher and natural disasters.
In the event of a traumatic incident, the Traumatic incident team will work alongside your school’s traumatic incident team to support your traumatic incident plan. The support is usually short-term.
Contact the Traumatic incident team when an incident:
- causes sudden and/or significant disruption to the operation, or effective operation, of your school
- affects a large number of children and young people and/or staff
- creates significant dangers or risks to the physical and emotional wellbeing of children, young people or people within a community
- attracts media attention or a public profile for the school.
Free phone 24/7: 0800 TI TEAM or 0800 848 326 (NZ only)
In some circumstances it will also be important to contact other key agencies in your community for support and guidance.
Example
Example of a situation where students may face a stand-down or suspension and it is a traumatic incident.
A student was murdered outside school hours. The school contacted the Traumatic incident team for advice and support. The school received support to manage the effects of the incident and set up a system to monitor ‘at-risk’ students. One student at the school some time after the incident started exhibiting behavioural problems in class and acting aggressively towards other students. The school was concerned for his wellbeing and thought he posed a risk to himself and others, and was contemplating suspending him. The student was identified previously as ‘at-risk’. Contact was made with his family and agreement was made to refer to mental health services. Before this could be actioned, the principal liaised with the regional office of the Ministry to obtain Interim Response Funding to support the student’s engagement at school.
Useful links
Traumatic incident support resources
Emergencies and traumatic incidents
National office – Traumatic incident team
Preventing and responding to suicide: Resource kit for schools is available on our website.
Preventing and responding to suicide: Resource kit for schoolsMinistry of Health
Guidelines about reporting and portraying suicide in the media.
Talking about suicide – Ministry of Health NZ
Te Whakarōputanga Kaitiaki Kura o Aotearoa (formerly NZSTA) New Zealand School Boards Association
Te Whakarōputanga Kaitiaki Kura o Aotearoa (formerly NZSTA) is the voice of school boards in New Zealand, providing services to New Zealand’s 2,500 state and state-integrated schools and kura.
Advice and support – Te Whakarōputanga Kaitiaki Kura o Aotearoa | NZ School Boards Association
Accident Compensation Corporation
Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC)
General enquiries
Phone: 0800 101 996
Victims of sexual abuse
Phone: 0800 735 566
Ministry of Justice
Information about the Youth Court in New Zealand.
