Yesterday, there was a deadly mass shooting at a high school in Parkland Florida. About 17 people were reported killed and as many were wounded. Details are still unfolding as law enforcement agencies continue their investigation.
AMHCA National grieves with our colleagues with the Florida Mental Health Counselors Association (FMHCA), and we offer any assistance we can provide during this very tough period for parents, students, friends and the citizens of Parkland. We stand with our FMHCA colleagues in your efforts to address the needs of people directly affected by this terrible tragedy, and your overall efforts to provide counseling services to the entire Parkland community.
Unfortunately, mass shootings here in the U.S. have become commonplace; they're no longer surprising, but they're just as upsetting every time. We don't know what to think or do or say in the wake of such horror. Among typical responses and the usual angst about the need for gun control and background checks and increase mental health funding, we also know that Congress in the end will do nothing about this growing public health crisis – and it is a crisis (there have been already several school shootings this year alone
We know that clinical mental health counselors and AMHCA stand ready to help people during this period. The most important thing we need to do is to send compassion to the affected families.
All we can do right now from a mental health perspective is to help people process this devastating event and try to address the collective grief.
As a parent, you can start by reassuring yourself that you are safe and loved and extend that assurance to anyone in your life who is sensitive or feels vulnerable, especially children.
But we also know that this kind of senseless loss is one of the hardest to manage, and it's vital that people allow themselves to fully grieve, with compassion, each time the grief and helplessness over the loss comes up.
And if you feel a desire to speak out or take action, remember that others might not have found that calm in the center of the emotional storm. So keep the volume low and we must be able to connect during these times in positive ways.
Whenever people conduct heinous actions or bad things happen in the world, it is important to remind yourself that there are also millions upon millions of acts of kindness that we will probably never hear about, and that there is still plenty of goodness happening in the world too.
We may never know or understand what compels someone to commit an act of such horror that occurred in Parkland. We may never be able to put ourselves in their shoes for what would possess them to take so many lives. But that does not mean we’re helpless. That does not mean we must live in fear.
While issues like gun control and access to mental health care are hugely important — we're not going to solve the issue of mass violence until we come together to address what has truly become an epidemic: bigotry, outright hatred toward people who do not share one’s beliefs or faith, and yes… a country full of lonely people with illnesses – some very serious – who are isolated and need help.
It must be seen as a collective illness and therefore -- addressed in a UNITED way.
Not let it tear us apart.