NASP Home > PREPaRE Curriculum and Training > PREPaRE Curriculum

The PREPaRE Curriculum

PREPaRE provides school-based mental health professionals and other educational professionals training on how to best fill the roles and responsibilities generated by their participation on school crisis teams. PREPaRE is one of the first comprehensive nationally available training curriculum developed by school-based professionals with firsthand experience and formal training. The curriculum is based on the assumptions that:

• the skill sets of school-based professionals are best utilized when they are embedded within a multidisciplinary team that engages in crisis prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery;
• school crisis management is relatively unique and as such requires its own conceptual model; and
• by virtue of their professional training and job functions, school-based mental health professionals are best prepared to address the psychological issues associated with school crises.

Specifically, the PREPaRE model emphasizes that, as members of a school crisis team, school mental health professionals must be involved in the following specific hierarchical and sequential set of activities.
P—Prevent and prepare for psychological trauma
R—Reaffirm physical health and perceptions of security and safety
E—Evaluate psychological trauma risk
P—Provide interventions
a—and
R—Respond to psychological needs
E—Examine the effectiveness of crisis prevention and intervention

The model also incorporates foundation knowledge provided by the U.S. Departments of Education and Homeland Security. Specifically, the PREPaRE curriculum describes crisis team activities as occurring during the four states of a crisis: (a) prevention, (b) preparedness, (c) response, and (d) recovery. It also incorporates the incident command structure as delineated by the National Incident Management System (NIMS).