Greetings and Happy Spring!

Mark your calendar for the 2018 Statewide Spring Council Meeting on Friday, May 18th 9:00 - 3:30 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bangor.

Active Shooter and Emergency Preparedness Training for Libraries: Are you and your staff prepared to respond in the event of a crisis?

Have you thought about what to do in an active shooter situation? Are you concerned about the opioid crisis and mental illness in your community? If you have a dangerous person in your library can you recognize and respond to signs of potential threats?

Join us for the annual Spring Council Meeting on Friday, May 18th at the Hilton Garden Inn as we hear from Sgt. Jason Stuart of the Bangor Police Department on how to respond using Run, Hide, Fight and what you need to be aware of to prepare for a dangerous situation. Dan Gastia, Community Relations Officer with the Bangor Police Department will talk about the growing concern over the opioid crisis and best practices for interacting with a patron in crisis. To round out the day, Melissa Gattine, a Clinical Educator at Maine Behavioral Healthcare will discuss dealing with mental illness in the library with strategies and easy to implement de-escalation techniques for library staff.

At the end of this training, participants will:
* Be able to conduct a security assessment of the library and identify vulnerable areas in the library
* Be prepared to respond to an active shooter emergency
* Be able to develop an Emergency Action Plan for the library
* Determine best practices for interacting with patrons in crisis
* Be able to identify and respond to a patron in crisis

For more information and to register for this event, visit the Calendar of Events http://root.evanced.info/maine/evanced/eventcalendar.asp?libnum=0

We hope to see you all there!

Jenny Melvin
State Data Coordinator
Liaison to Regions 5 & 6
Maine State Library
145 Harlow Street
Bangor, ME 04401
207-947-8336 ext.116