HANCOCK – A crisis team that was begun in January 2016 by George Stockero, superintendent of the Copper Country Intermediate School District, is progressing satisfactorily, Stockero said at the regular meeting of the CCISD board on Tuesday. The crisis team held its second meeting this semester, he said, “and it went very well.”

At that meeting, the team established some goals and established a mission statement, defining the purpose of the team as “To maintain a community crisis team to support individual school districts.”

Along with the mission statement, Purpose Statements were also created, which are, “To be available for crises events or provide extras support for events,” and “Provide resources for school districts and other community groups to access.”

A sub-committee was formed to create a resource list that will include brochures and online information.

“So, we have a sub-group working on creating different crisis plans and materials to help schools,” Stockero said, “and we plan on having that here, one online through our website that any school can grab it when needed, and some physical stuff here, should they need it, so that’s the next step for that.”

At the meeting, the crisis team said that in order to be better prepared for a tragedy, It would be beneficial to organize training, “so, we’re all on the same page,” Stockero said.

“I talked to the superintendents and I said, ‘Okay, what do we want?'” he related, “and we set something up in August for a two-day training, where every school can send a mini-team and we’ll all be on the same page.”

All area-wide crisis team members state they are willing to come together should a crisis arise and meet with the local school to see how they can be of assistance. Member that make up the area-wide crisis team include police, EMT, fire departments, mental health, private psychologists, social workers, Dial Help, and clergy.

“And so, it’s still in its infancy, but we have 20 people on this, and we looking to see who else should be in this group,” Stockero said. “It’s a good group and we’ve actually set some goals and set a mission, and it’s a nice cross-section of people in the county, and here to help everybody. Hopefully we will never need this team, but it’s nice to know we’re getting better prepared.”