CHARLOTTE, N.C. — This school year, WCNC Charlotte has reported on several tragic incidents that have impacted the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School community. These include deadly car crashes and shootings involving students.
These traumatic events can have a lasting impact on students. That’s why CMS has a crisis response team to help them deal with this type of trauma.
“It’s very difficult because we know that every time we have a crisis it affects the whole school community,” CMS Crisis Prevention and Response Manager Anna Priester said.
The crisis response team is a resource to students, someone they can talk to about their feelings or about a loss when a crisis happens. About 750 counselors, psychologists and social workers make up the team at CMS. Priester is one of them and said she was meant to be a counselor.
“I knew at a very young age that I was meant to help other people, especially kids, and to be there for them,” Priester said.
The team takes action and provides mental and emotional support in times of need.
“We have had quite a few car accidents, quite a few bus accidents,” Priester said. “Luckily our gun violence … homicides are less than in the past, but they are still there, and there are still way too many.”
The team responds to all types of incidents.
“If a kid falls off on the monkey bars and breaks an arm and kids see that … it is still traumatic, and kids need support and a response,” Priester said.
Priester added that trauma can show up in many ways.
“It can show out as anger, all of the grief that goes around losing somebody… anxiety,” Priester explained.
Their team works to identify the size of the impact.
“Who is physically close to witnessing the crisis, who is possibly emotionally close to whoever in the crisis,” Priester said. “Friends, teammates, romantic partners.”
She said they also make sure to follow up with students.
As a parent, Mark Raley said these efforts provide students with a much-needed outlet.
“I can put my child in somebody else’s hands, and they will do what I would do at home if I’m not there,” Raley said. “They can get the same feeling, the love, and maybe he would open up even more because it is another person.”
Raley runs a mentorship program called “Young Men United." He said the more resources the community can provide kids during tough times the more supported they will feel.
Raley said understands the power of having someone to speak during tough times.
“When they can see a teacher, principal or a crisis response counselor to be there in a time of need… it gives them hope,” Raley said.
Even when it’s hard to come by.
Raley said when a life is lost or someone is hurt, it impacts the entire community. He knows firsthand that pain after losing two mentees to gun violence.
“It hurts,” Raley said. “It hurts me just to see them suffer as well. You know we do our best as mentors. We do our best as parents to give all we can and just to lose them is hard.”
In moments of crisis, he is there for his young men, standing united and finding ways to heal from trauma. Raley says the goal of his program is to empower young men and help them stay on the right path.
“We take the moment to pray, and we take the moment to vent as well,” Raley said. “I think when we give them their space and a safe space to be able to express how they feel they can feel better to make it to the next day.”
CMS’s program is support Priester said goes a long way to show kids they have someone who cares. This is work she wants to see continue.
“I’m also now training the next generation of staff and counselors and psychologists to be able to provide this level of support to their kids,” Priester said
CMS also looks at ways to prevent crises in school with suicide prevention programs, the "See Something, Say Something" initiative helps in these efforts.
They are also working on a gun violence task force.
Young Men United is hosting a gathering on March 2 at 5 p.m.
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.