It is with great sadness that we send out this message. Our hearts are heavy as we all hold great compassion for those whose lives have been shattered by this terrible event at Virginia Tech. Many of you on our mailing list are in K-12 schools, but many of you are also parents of college students. We hope you’ll forward it to other parents of college students and especially, to those you might know who work in colleges. Resources and links…We all always hope it won’t happen again, and we all know that, somewhere, some time, it will. But this was again, another worst.

Because it happened on a college campus, most students are away from their parents. This brings about some special challenges in meeting the needs of these young adults. I want to be sure you all have a link to our guidelines written today for supporting parents and university staff who work with college students at Univ&ParentGuidelinesVaTech. We also have free resources at www.cmionline.org. More importantly, please check out the downloadables link to see our long list of free pdf handouts. You are welcome to download any of these and make as many copies to give to anyone you like, leaving the footer with contact and copyright information intact.

A special note to universities…Often we think if youth don’t let us know they’re bothered, they’re doing OK. This is a time to offer many differing opportunities for students to gather together in forums, in faith-based gatherings, in dorms and in other clusters. Included on the handout are suggestions for the structuring of such gatherings. Please feel free to go to our contacts page to leave an email of specific questions about how best to support students in these times. I will also be posting and answering questions in this “blog” forum as well.Our heartfelt sympathies are with families, friends, university staff and all whose lives have been touched by this terrible event.

Be well,

~ Cheri