Police Scanner: We’ve got shots fired, Route 91 an automatic firearm. Code red, shots fired.

Jordana: I’ll never be the same. I’ll never be the same. I won’t let it define me but I’ll never be the same.

Announcer: Las Vegas was shattered. Families destroyed. Children in fear. No city could have been prepared to cope with this tragedy. So Boys Town dedicated itself to helping heal the wounds of its community.

Denise: What do you say when something that no one should have to talk about to children has happened? For some parents they would rather not say anything and hope everything is ok. We really wanted to encourage people that now is a good time for communication. Every parent could benefit from knowing how to talk to kids in crisis.

Hewitt Family: You just can’t imagine it happening here and to you and you don’t really know the scale of it until a day or two later. The question then is how do you tell your children, what do you tell your children to reassure the kids that they were safe on an ongoing basis, because they’re terrified and as a parent you’re terrified. You don’t want your kids to go to school, you don’t want to go out to dinner, you don’t want to go out to dinner, you don’t want to live your life as you normally did.

Announcer: In the weeks that followed the tragedy, Las Vegas was forced to face the grim reality. It had joined the ranks of a growing, tragic list of cities torn apart by unimaginable violence. Though the community began to heal, another fact had become abundantly clear: Las Vegas did not have the mental health resources to serve its children and families.

Dr. Hunt: Having mental health providers for children, especially Boys Town, being able to serve as a source of education to parents around mental health issues, around trauma, what that looks like, how to talk about traumatic events. We see the need more and more to be able to do that.

Announcer: The lights are on. The music plays. One year after the event a visitor may look around and miss the wounds from the massacre. The sad truth is that for some families, these may never heal if they don’t have access to the mental health resources they need. To serve our community, Boys Town has redoubled its efforts to provide not only post-crisis healing, but also preventative services in the areas of mental health and wellness for many of the most vulnerable…the children.

Dr. Borsch: I definitely think that Oct 1 will open the communities eyes to what services in mental health are needed and how important they are for individuals to be able to get the help they need in order to get back out and live their lives more fully and effectively.

Denise: Mental health is a key issue to a lot of the violence that we’re seeing around the country, that’s not to say it’s the only issue. But often times there is some sort of mental health issue related to the violence that we see happening around the country. And when there is a lack of access to mental health care we’re setting up our communities for failure, we’re setting them up for tragedy. We need to invest in the resources that strengthen our communities if we really want to prevent these kinds of things from happening. And that’s one of the things that I love about our education model, every kid, in every school, the teachers are trained in our education model are getting those skills every day and they’re learning how to cope and they’re learning how to ask for help and they’re learning how to get along with others and how to manage conflict. We’re building adults that will make the next generation better and stronger to make a better and stronger community.