About CMI
Crisis Management Institute
Help Is Here
Are you trying to navigate the current crisis or trying to make solid plans for the next one — whatever it may be? We can help.
Our 40+ years addressing school crisis response, trauma intervention, and violence prevention has taught us what youth, parents, and their communities need in order to lower anxieties and build resilience.
Best Sellers
Crisis Resource Manual
The Crisis Resource Manual is your “go to” guide for critical decisions and actions on crisis day. This book also contains material helpful in planning for crisis response.
School Crisis Response | Covid Edition
This is an online manual — plus video segments and worksheets — provides the foundation for your new crisis response plan in a distance learning environment.
The Safe Room
This book provides schools with guidelines for operating a Safe Room where students can process grief and find meaning in the aftermath of tragedy without disrupting teacher’s work or other students learning.
I witnessed Cheri Lovre’s intervention in a school community torn by racial divide. Her guidance led to a palpable change. I couldn’t recommend her work more highly.
– Linda Shoemaker, School Counselor
Lancaster County PA
Meet Cheri Lovre
Cheri Lovre started as a Behavioral Specialist in the 1980s writing IEPs and working with behaviorally challenged students in schools. She noticed that many of the students on her caseload were struggling with grief or trauma. As a result, by the mid-80s she was training school crisis response teams (Flight Teams).
She wrote the Crisis Resource Manual in 1985. Armed with her third book, the Catastrophic Events Resource Manual in the 90s, she began responding to school shootings. Her first response was Thurston High School, Springfield. Just one year later she responded to Columbine. Cheri spent 2 years in NYC following 9/11 and her work continues still. With every on-site response, she’s gained more and more insight on the root of all of this violence.
Past on-site responses include:
- Many school shootings/mass casualty events including Freeman HS (2017), Abbotsford BC (2016), Marysville HS (2014), Nickel Mines Amish school, Lancaster County, PA (2006), Essex Elem., VT (2006), Red Lion MS, PA (2003), Red Lion, PA. (2001), Columbine High School (April, 1999); Thurston HS, Springfield, OR (May 1998) and more
- Many shootings involving students occurring off school grounds
- Lived in NY for two years post 9/11; for 29 “schools that fled” in Manhattan and Bergen County schools,
- New Jersey. Worked with leadership teams, administrators and district officials, staff, students and community
- Suicide clusters in several school districts over past two decades
- Machete incident in a kindergarten classroom, 2/2001, Red Lion, PA
- Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina follow-up support in Louisiana (two domes and public schools)
- Humanitarian effort in the war zone of Sri Lanka following the 2004 tsunami, addressing trauma in orphans
- Murder of an 8th grade girl by a 9th grade boy in park behind school (Philomath, OR, 1994)
- Numerous events involving single deaths or multiple deaths that did not draw national media attention
- School upheaval following arrests of staff or students for soliciting sex over the internet, coach/player sexual relationship, new hire with a record for manslaughter, student arrest for mother’s murder and more.
- Keynotes at international conferences including Vilnius, Lithuania (2016), Toronto, Canada (2003) and others
- Provided training internationally in The Philippines, Costa Rica, Australia, Canada, and Norway
- Authored multiple courses on prevention, crisis response, mental health issues for youth and more
- Authored materials are used in all 50 states, Australia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Canada and South Africa
Authored an extensive complement of manuals and books on crisis response, including:
- The Crisis Resource Manual (responding to common school crises and tragedies)
- The Catastrophic Events Resource Manual (school shootings, hostage-takings, when life is at risk)
- The Training Manual (content-related book on nine specific areas related to school crises)
- Media Relations for Schools, Including Crisis Communications
- The Safe Room: A Guide for School Crisis Responders
- Reclaiming Life! (a workbook for recovery of trauma for those old enough to journal)
- The Day That … (a workbook using art for young children recovering from trauma)
- The All Staff Preparedness Kit (a video series for training school staff in basic crisis response skills)
- Authored several chapters in books on crisis response, on trauma recovery, an encyclopedia of trauma, more
- Authored several articles for American School Counselors Association magazine
Other endeavors include:
- Trained a national crisis response team for the National Association of Secondary Principals (NASSP) and to several states to create state-level catastrophic response capacity for schools
- Responder to major incidents on behalf of NOVA (the National Organization of Victim Assistance) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management) in response to the Oregon flood of 1996, responding to hostage situations, missing children, death of the leadership team of a corporation in a plane crash
- Keynote speaker for state-wide and national events
- Served on the Oregon Attorney General’s Coalition for Violence Prevention and Safe Schools
- Created the Flight Team concept (school-based crisis response teams) now used by many states’ school districts, International Schools and in Australia
- Certified Trauma Specialist and by International Green Cross
- Distinguished Associate, Kamm Solutions (2015-present)
- Received the Peace Award; Living Enrichment Center (1996)