Student safety is a primary goal of schools. How schools approach safety and emergency preparedness can have a large impact on how students learn and grow.
We’ve got your back.
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Consultation
The Sammy & Friends team is available for one-on-one consultation with schools to look at how you can make your emergency drills more trauma informed while ensuring they are done well. We encourage this to be an iterative, collaborative process to ensure the approach is designed well for the school community. This can be done for grades K-12.
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Safety Coaching in Schools
The Sammy & Friends team is available to visit K-3 classrooms to provide trauma informed emergency drills coaching on-site. This process involves planning with the school and key community partners like law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services (EMS) to ensure the coaching meets proper procedures and the needs of the school community. Contact us to learn more about this process.
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Train-the-Coach Approach
Sammy & Friends Train-the-Coach approach teaches school staff how to carry out the Sammy & Friends trauma informed emergency drills approach in their K-3 classrooms. Our goal with this approach is to provide materials, training, and practice to empower school staff to lead trauma informed emergency drills coaching within their schools so you don’t need us. Don’t worry though, we’re always here for ongoing support.
In over a decade of working with elementary school-aged children, Sammy & Friends' approach is the first that made me feel confident about discussing school violence with young children.
While planning for these types of events is always a top priority, our profession has struggled to come up with an age-appropriate, trauma-informed way of preparing kids for such an emergency.
The Sammy & Friends program empowers students to think about safety in an emergency setting by providing them with a neutral but relatable scenario. They can empathize with Sammy, and apply the lesson to their own classroom.
Communicating this messaging with staff and families was no less emotionally demanding, but the outcome was fewer students scared during drills and fewer parents complaining or asking to opt their child out of potentially life-saving emergency training.
Teachers shared that they felt more confident talking to students about lockdown drills, and students reported feeling more prepared should they ever be in an emergency situation at school.
— Luke Vieira, Principal of Colonel Wright Elementary School