Crisis meetings for schools: immediate help for traumatized students!

Crisis meetings for schools: immediate help for traumatized students!

A crisis meeting took place in Villach on Sunday evening to initiate timely measures to support affected schools. In addition to school management and class leaders, the State Office for State Security and Combating Extremism and the Red Cross crisis intervention team also took part. Education Director Isabella Penz explained to ORF Carinthia that the main goal is to develop long-term support concepts. Crisis intervention teams will be present at several schools on Monday to help students and teachers. The intervention teams place particular focus on five schools where witnesses of a tragedy need support.

Increasing mental health needs

In an alarming context, the free school program “Strengthen Strengthen”, supported by AstraZeneca, is also being expanded, like the initiative SIPCAN communicates. Over 100,000 children and young people in Austria show signs of depression or are already suffering from depression. As society struggles with the consequences of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, SIPCAN reports are alarming: 22% of girls and 10% of boys feel emotionally unwell. The “Strengthening Strengths” program is intended to help promote psychological resilience and thus improve students’ health behavior.

The initiative will continue over the next three school years and aims to provide schools with comprehensive materials and support to focus on student resilience. AstraZeneca Country President Filippo Fontana emphasizes that a strong awareness of one's own strengths in children lays the foundation for a healthy upbringing. Whether in Villach or other parts of Austria, the urgency to respond to young people's mental health is becoming increasingly clear.