TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The Twin Falls community now has access to free, drop-in crisis support sessions following the deadly mass shooting at the local In-N-Out restaurant.
The sessions, arranged through a partnership between the city and the National Organization of Violence Advocates (NOVA), are designed to provide emotional support and connect people with recovery resources.
Becky Gierer, a trained crisis support responder, and her team of specialists have been brought to Twin Falls through the city-NOVA partnership.
"Yeah, recovery takes a long time," Gierer said. "It's not something that happens within a day or a week or even a month after an event; it can take a lot of time."
"Because we know trauma, and sometimes it doesn't really always surface right away."
Because privacy is paramount, the Idaho News 6 cameras stayed outside. City Counselor Ruth Pierce shared afterward how the community crisis sessions came about.
"But one of the things we recognized is that this healing doesn't happen overnight," Pierce said.
Pierce said the city surveyed residents to gauge community needs before bringing NOVA in.
"We put out a survey asking the community what they needed, that our citizens were they processing do they want to have more support what they wanted to do got a really great response. We've coupled that with bringing nova's representatives in," Pierce said.
The sessions are free and designed to be drop-in — no registration is needed. A schedule on the city's website directs community members to the session that works best for their schedule.
When asked who the sessions are open to, Gierer said anyone impacted by the shooting is welcome.
"Anyone who has been impacted by this event can come to this, so it might be folks that work at In-N-Out. It might be people that were in the community surrounding the area that was impacted. It might be the businesses that were around it. It could be anyone in the community that was touched by this event, which is a lot of folks," Gierer said.
"And there'll be more later this week at various times and various locations, so we're hoping that we get members of the community that wanna talk about it or wanna find out more about how to help them through this," Pierce said.
Crisis response sessions will run Oct. 12–14, Oct. 28–30, and Nov. 7.
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