Newtown officials and spokespersons for state agencies involved with supporting both immediate victims and survivors of 12/14 responded to queries by The Newtown Bee following testimony last week by two surviving families to the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission. The 16-member panel appointed last year by Governor Dannel Malloy is tasked with reviewing current policies and making specific recommendations in the areas of public safety.

During that nearly two-hour session November 14, Dr Jeremy Richman and Jennifer Hensel, parents of 6-year-old victim Avielle Richman, along with Nelba Marquez-Greene, the mother of 6-year-old Ana Marquez-Greene, detailed their impression of state and local response to the needs of their families, along with ways they believe Connecticut could improve response to incidents like the one Newtown faced on that fateful December morning 23 months earlier.

(See separate story.)

One key aspect of the families’ testimony to the commission was that the state and its responding agencies either appeared unequipped to handle the volume or scope of need; or that some of the early stage responders charged with interacting with families were not trained to face a tragedy of this magnitude.

Mr Richman, Ms Hensel and Ms Marquez-Greene also suggested that state and local agencies may have not gone far enough to ensure that immediate victims and survivors, wracked with grief and in post-traumatic shock, were kept in the loop, and brought up to date as services and other response initiatives developed.

After reviewing some of the testimony from November 14, First Selectman Pat Llodra said she was going to have to “re-think and recalibrate” the way she looks at both her actions and responses related to the community at large, and members of the Newtown community who were most affected by the tragedy — those immediate survivors, victims and their families.

“I learn new communication dynamics every day about dealing with crises,” Mrs Llodra said, “and that includes applying those lessons [by] doing a better job at trying to see through the eyes of those most impacted by horrible events.”

The first selectman said there are critical but subtle differences between her outreach to the entire community, and the level of outreach she needs to exercise with the immediate victims of 12/14.

“Above all, as I try to get better at managing the aftereffects of 12/14, I have to make sure it’s their voices that are heard,” she said. “That means going forward, those voices — the voices of those most directly affected — need to be [brought into] decision-making about anything related to that tragic event.”

She noted that the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission has included several parents of the children who were killed on the panel to ensure their perspective is incorporated each step of the way as they work toward any recommendations that may be forthcoming about an eventual memorial plan.

“Other survivors have also taken on public roles and [heightened] visibility on behalf of their families,” Mrs Llodra said, referring to the various foundations and initiatives already established by those survivors.

“As things come across my desk, I have to think more about how those things, or my reactions, affect the immediate victims,” Mrs Llodra said, “how the government’s actions affect them, and whether they have a voice” related to those initiatives and reactions.

The first selectman said that sometimes her broader community focus, which by default included the survivors, did not take into account that those survivors have their own individual voices, and that they deserve to be heard on a point-by-point basis.

“So my lens going forward will focus on them, it will start with them,” Mrs Llodra said. “The courage they have, and the wisdom they have gained through their loss … we can all learn from it. That is what compassion truly looks like.”

Mrs Llodra said she has already begun identifying and looking to mitigate any gaps in services, to strengthen the lines of communication about what services are available, and to fill those gaps.

“I’m going to work hard to make sure that happens, in my capacity to do so,” she added.

The first selectman said it was a day short of the sixth-month anniversary of the shootings, June 13, 2013, when the town was first provided and began applying resources from the federal government. Up until then it was up to intervening state agencies and the local school district to direct response and resources to survivors.

“Until then, gaps developed,” she said. “But no excuses, going forward we will do a better job. We will identify any gaps and respond to any deficiencies.”

Long-Term Relief

A call from The Bee to the state Judicial Department’s Office of Victims Services resulted in an email response from the agency’s Director, Linda J. Cimino. She focused her response exclusively to two items raised by the parents:

“After the tragedy, the legislature approved and the governor signed Public Act 13-275 An Act Concerning Coordinated Long-Term Disaster Relief Recovery. Section 5 of the Public Act establishes a foundation that ‘may accept gifts, grants or donations from private sources to enable the foundation to carry out its purposes.’  This is similar to the 1Boston Fund that was mentioned by Dr. Richman.”

Secondly, Ms Cimino noted that “Ms Marquez-Greene mentioned being told of free college tuition for her son. Section 10a-99 (d) outlines those CT residents who are eligible to receive a ‘waiver of payment tuition fees at the Connecticut State University System.’ There students and siblings impacted by the Sandy Hook tragedy are not included in this section.”

Ms Cimino concluded stating that “on December 21, 2012 UConn announced that they ‘created a memorial scholarship fund to honor those who died.’ The press release further stated ‘[t]he Sandy Hook School Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Connecticut will help support the college costs for any sibling of those killed in the assault, the dependents of adults who also lost their lives, as well as students currently enrolled at the elementary school, who are accepted to attend the University.”

Ms Cimino also referred The Bee to Connecticut’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), which coordinated immediate and post-incident response related to the mental health and psychological well-being of the immediate victims, survivors, the Sandy Hook School community Newtown.

DMHAS, Governor’s Response

A DMHAS spokesperson, Mary Kate Mason, expressed gratitude on behalf of the agency for the parents who testified on November 14 and before that, as well as to the commissioners themselves for gathering feedback and providing a venue for them to express their perspectives.

“All their information will only help strengthen our future behavioral health response and systems,” Ms Mason said.

The DMHAS spokesperson said it was too soon for the agency to assess the feedback from November 14 and to factor it into the body of “lessons learned” that the agency was compiling.

“We currently have a chain of command, and a command structure for large scale events that bring behavioral health implications, like those that the incidents of 12/14 continue to present,” she said. “I think we’ll factor that information as we review the [latest] testimony, but no official review has happened yet. That said, the department has previously reflected on its actions without the families’ perspectives.”

She said the work her agency and its agents do is based on previous response to the limited mass casualty incidents that have occurred in the state, as well as incidents like 9/11.

“A lot of things were put in place in Newtown for both the victims’ families and the Sandy Hook School community,” Ms Mason said. “Based on our scope of responsibilities, we did what we had to do. Each family liaison was given a written protocol, and received coaching and support about how to respond to family members.”

She said that the agency may consider enhancing its coaching and support to better reinforce ongoing outreach practices for immediate mass casualty survivors. And since 12/14, DMHAS has already reviewed all its responses and the roles its representatives on the intervention team played.

“We definitely have recruited more responders — particularly those trained to work with children,” she said. “We want to be certain we have more depth to our bench, especially for those applying psychological first aid.

“Our responders’s role, however, is not to provide ongoing therapy, it’s similar to other first responder intervention,” Ms Mason added. “As we move forward we’ll be sure to have very clear procedures, [identification] of roles, and we’ll reinforce the ‘doubling back’ practices so any survivor or victim understands what services are available for them at any given moment post-incident. That scope and availability has the potential to change or grow over time.”

On November 19, Governor Dannel P. Malloy said the state will “do another round of outreach” to the families of those killed on 12/14 to see if their needs are being met. The governor said he is in contact with families and does not believe such complaints are “universal.”

But he says “they obviously reflect the need of individuals and should be attended to.”

A Community That Helps Each Other

Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert said after reviewing audio from the November 14 testimony, that she was humbled by the input.

“Sometimes its hard to know how to do things in a way that is helpful and meaningful for the families of the victims,” she told The Bee. “The families were so protected, rightfully so, because the invasion of media, of well-intended helpers, and even not-so-well-intended helpers, was like a tidal wave. It was important to protect them.”

 Ms Culbert said she has never known the joy and heartaches of parenthood, and that she can only imagine the loss to be unbearable. 

“But I've met some of the parents, of children and teachers who were lost, and I mean it when I say I really felt like I was in the presence of God when I was with them — truly,” she said.  “And I believe I was, because it takes the love of God to have helped these people continue to breathe, to walk, let alone live.”

After hearing the testimony, the local public health professional said she felt “badly that we have let some of the families down. And maybe all of them, we don’t know that for sure.”

“As Ms Hensel, Dr Richman and Ms Marquez-Greene said, they speak for themselves and not for all. I know their comments were not intended to do that, it’s to help make things better, and fortunately because of their voices, we will be able to do that,” Ms Culbert observed. 

Nonetheless, she said it was hard to hear about things that weren’t done, when she believes the town and her agency was trying so hard to help, especially with all the immediate survivors.

“But its important for me to remember that we were doing the best we could, and we can learn how to do things better, more proficiently, more focused, more inclusively,” Ms Culbert said. “Not that there is one set of streamlined answers about response, recovery and resiliency — 26 families are all different — but there were some very practical process recommendations offered.”

In addition to making improvements and creating processes for better responses to crises, the local health agent said she hopes Newtown can help the families feel like they are an important part of the community, just like all Newtown’s families. 

“I've been here a long time, 18 years now,” she said. “We are a community that helps each other and shares in the work and the rewards, the happiness and the sadness. Newtown the community has never hesitated to step up to lend a helping hand, to support someone in need, to fight for the current relative cause.

“Regardless of whether the families are the recipient of that goodwill, or they are the helper, the supporter, the defender - its just a matter of time, we are in all those positions at some point,” Ms Culbert concluded. “Collectively, its who we are.”

Associated Press content was used in this report.