Parent Communications
Parents will want information when a death has occurred in the school. Depending on the
nature of the emergency, the entire community may be affected. By issuing press/media
statements, you will meet some of the community's need for information; however, special
communications to parents may be extremely helpful in gaining their support for the school and
in reaching satisfactory closure to the crises.
Parent Communications by Phone:
➢ Use active listening skills to calm an upset parent.
➢ Contact the parents of any student who has had a difficult time coping with the death
and give suggestions on how to offer support at home plus information on community
mental health resources.
➢ Reassure parents that the school is responding to the emergency and describe
the response activity.Guidelines for Written Communication to The Parents:
Depending on the impact of the death, a letter may be sent home with every student in the
class or classes involved and, in some cases, with the entire school. This letter could include
the following information:
➢ Information about the death that has occurred (share only what was advised)
➢ What the children have been told.
➢ Grief reactions that the parents might expect to see in their children.
➢ How to respond to their children.
➢ Resources available to the parents.
➢ Steps the school is taking to cope with the situation.Guidelines for Parent Meetings:
The general experience of school personnel holding large group or assembly meetings for
parents has been that these meetings tend to add contagion to the crises rather than to
minimize the impact for the community. The recommendations for parent meetings if there
must be one is for small group meetings to be held off school premises, if possible, perhaps in
neighborhood centers. Some schools have successfully conducted parent meetings by
assigning small groups to classrooms and arranging for two facilitators for each group. If a
meeting is held off-campus, staff should attend the meetings to reassure parents that the
school is responding to the emergency. Any parent meeting should be conducted during after-
school hours.
An alternative to group meetings may be to offer parents drop-in counseling during after-
school hours. This arrangement should be offered for no more than one school week