Supporting Critical and Serious Incidents in Schools and Communities
‘With you in the mess!” At MAST we often joke that this is our unofficial motto, and there is no time when this is truer than when a family, school or community has experienced a highly distressing event. A Critical or Serious Incident response is a service that MAST offers to all schools that subscribe to us.
When to call?
While there is no ‘official’ definition, a ‘Critical Incident’ is one which impacts a large number of people in a school, extends into the community and is the result of a highly traumatic event. Perhaps the best example of this would be the tragic shootings in Keyham in 2021. A ‘Serious Incident’ would be one that impacted a smaller number of children and adults and is likely to be contained within a group and could be the result of an incident like a sudden traumatic death within a family or, for example, the assault of a member of school staff by a parent in front of pupils/students.
Schools contact us for advice and help following a range of incidents including the death of members of the school community, traumatic and sudden deaths of parents/carers, and the impact of experiencing or witnessing accidents and crime. Each situation is unique and will impact in ways that can rarely be predicted with any accuracy.
How?
Through a call to the school’s link MAST Educational Psychologist or into the MAST Team number or, particularly for a Critical Incident response out of hours or in holiday periods, via a call from a Head Teacher to Lisa Hartley, our Chief Executive Officer.
Responses are always tailored to the needs of the specific incident and school, as a collaboration of shared experience, problem-solving, and co-construction of a support plan, checking that the needs of all groups impacted are met.
For a serious incident, this may be through a conversation, joint problem-solving, advice, the offering of resources, signposting to specialist services and ongoing support to staff. For a Critical Incident, there is likely to be a co-ordinated response involving a number of members of the MAST team within school. In both cases, a school will generally receive a response call in under an hour and a member of the team will be in the school within 2–3 hours (and often faster) if needed and as agreed with school staff. Support is flexible and adjusted as the dynamic response of pupils, families, staff and the community to the incident is better understood. Generally, there is ongoing support following a request, but on the basis that we are “there when needed and gone when not”. Our role is ‘scaffolding’ and complementing the school team, supporting all staff with their own emotions and strengthening their knowledge, skills and confidence in meeting the needs of their pupils/students and each other.
Our approach is broadly informed by guidance from the UK Trauma Council whose website has excellent resources and materials including lesson plans and guidance on policy writing Critical Incidents in Educational Communities - UK Trauma Council
Key areas that tend to cross all incidents include generating and reinforcing an environment and activities which promote feelings of safety, calm, connection, control and hopefulness (UK Trauma Council)
We sincerely hope that you NEVER need us in this role … but if you do, we’ll be “With you in the Mess!”
Reference and resource
UK Trauma Council (January 2023) Critical Incidents in Educational Communities, accessed 11 01 2026 UKTC_CI-guidance.pdf
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