Meet the team helping SA schools deal with trauma

06 November 2023

The Social Work Incident Support Service helps teachers and staff to provide students with the support they need to guide them through a critical incident or situation.

SWISS Acting Team Leader Tanya Russo with team members Rebecca, Jasmine, Megan, Georgia, Hannah and Edit.

In an ideal world the Social Work Incident Support Service (SWISS) wouldn’t exist.

Unfortunately, though, children are not immune to the trials of the wider world and tragedy and trauma can encroach into the schoolyard.

When this happens the SWISS team swings into action.

On any given day a SWISS worker could be in Ceduna, Mt Gambier or a school in the inner-city, helping teachers and staff to provide students with the support they need to guide them through a critical incident or situation.

Natural disaster, road accidents, the death of a student or teacher, suicide and self-harm, bomb threats and sexual behaviour can all trigger a visit from a member of the SWISS team, which is made up of some of the state’s most experienced social workers.

Formed in 2015, SWISS workers attend around 1400 incidents a year – a number that is unfortunately increasing.

SWISS Acting Team Leader Tanya Russo said it was essential to move quickly in the aftermath of a traumatic incident.

“We need to be extremely timely and purposeful,” Ms Russo said.

“Particularly when we're providing ‘psychological first aid’ to students who are experiencing distress after a critical incident.

"The timeliness of us going out and providing that support can reduce ongoing mental health issues or any other issues later on.

“So that's why it's so important for us to do that assessment with the principal as soon as possible.”

Ms Russo said that working alongside the principal, or other senior staff members, was critical to SWISS making a positive impact.

“Generally, schools have solved a lot of problems in their lifetime, and often they have the resources within them to do that,” she said.

"But when there’s a critical incident, I think a lot of principals can feel quite isolated, and we can be there to work through things together.

“We are there to walk alongside them, support them, and let them know they’re not on their own.”

Ms Russo said that no matter the incident or level of support being provided by the SWISS team, it was always driven by an ethos known as “the five Cs”.

“This involves being calm, showing compassion, containment – which is making sure students that should be unaffected by this remain unaffected - clarifying roles and responsibilities, and connection – building, focusing on the relationships that exist around safety and belonging at the school," she said.

“The other thing our team is able to do, because we have so much experience, is share best practice with schools.

"We can actually talk to them about how things have unfolded in other schools and help them make decisions about what service they may need.”

Unfortunately the number of incidents at schools and preschools serious enough to call in the SWISS team is on the rise, with Ms Russo identifying there could be a number of community factors impacting this.

Almost 30 per cent of consultations this year have been in relation to sexualised behaviour – something she believed could be linked to supervision and care of children, including access to social media and the internet.

The ubiquity of the internet, Ms Russo said, meant young people today were faced with issues that simply didn’t exist a generation ago.

“When an incident happens, more children are affected by it now because they're so connected through social media,” she said.

“This might have been a bit more contained 15 or 20 years ago. And of course there are things like bullying, which was once left at school but can now follow you home.”

Of course the nature of the work the SWISS team undertakes can take its toll, and Ms Russo said making sure the team was supported was a priority.

“We work a lot on prevention and have a lot of conversations around wellbeing and providing opportunities for individuals and the team to connect with the support that they need," she said.

"This is vital to ensure the team can operate at the high level that they do.”

Any reader who is seeking help should consider the following options: