Active shooter drills could traumatize students, PH psychiatrists group warns

A live-shooter drill in schools could cause psychological harm to children if done improperly, the Philippine Psychiatric Association (PPA) warned Tuesday.

The PPA had called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to defer planned active shooter drills in campuses, saying that such drills do not necessarily make schools safer.

In an interview on Unang Balita, PPA Immediate Past President Dr. Joan Mae Perez-Rifareal said that they support measures to make schools safe again, but stressed that when students are exposed to simulated attacks, the latter may also be exposed to hyper-realistic scenarios of violence.

"Evidence-based dapat ang ating mga protocols and trauma-informed," Perez-Rifareal said. (Our protocols should be evidence-based and trauma-informed.)

"This psychological harm could affect different age groups of students," she added.

While kids are exposed to periodic fire and earthquake drills, a simulated shooting drill is different because this is not a natural hazard, the PPA official said.

Simulations of realistic violence could cause feelings of anxiety, stress and depression, Perez-Rifareal said. These feelings could last up to 90 days.

Perez-Rifareal said that there could still be preventive measures, but these need to be age-appropriate.

For younger kids, this could be in the form of storytelling and providing reassurance.

The notice time allotted between the announcement on August 12 and the actual targeted date of August 25 did not allow teachers and parents to properly prepare.

The announcement of the simulated active shooting drill came more than a month after the tragic Tacloban shooting that saw the deaths of three students, with the designated drill schedule coming a week after another fatal school shooting in Zamboanga City.

The DepEd has pushed back the conduct of the active shooting drill to the first week of September. — VDV, GMA News