Threat assessment as a school violence prevention strategy

Abstract

Research Summary: This paper describes the immense difficulty of predicting that someone is going to carry out a school shooting and then turns to threat assessment as a more promising violence prevention strategy. In schools, a multidisciplinary threat assessment team investigates reported threats and develops responses that are calibrated to the seriousness of the threat and the student's educational needs. Researchers have found that school teams have been able to resolve thousands of student threats with no serious acts of violence, yet permitting the majority of students to return to school. Controlled studies have found that schools using this approach can have reductions in the use of school suspension and improvements in student and teacher perceptions of school climate.Policy Implications: Threat assessment represents a fundamental shift in the risk assessment field away from the pursuit of predictive accuracy toward a broader approach to the prevention of violence by helping troubled individuals. Threat assessment offers schools a proactive alternative to reactive practices such as zero tolerance discipline and costly investment in building security measures.

Participation of Children and Adolescents in Live Crisis Drills and Exercises

“…These efforts include, among others, efforts in social-emotional learning, positive school climate and culture, early identification and effective and readily accessible treatment of behavioral health concerns and mental illness, educator and school administration training, deployment of sufficient mental health and support personnel in schools, and interdisciplinary threat assessment. 5 The AAP and its members can work with others nationally to balance the rights of gun ownership with the need to protect the safety of children in a way that does not allow society to view mass shootings involving children as inevitable or as a "new normal" in society.…”

“…School safety, especially related to school shootings, has generated opportunities for products and services that together represent major financial investments, without much or any evidence of efficacy. 5 Products promoted for purchase by schools now include bulletproof barriers or shelters intended to accommodate the full class and teacher that can be used as panic rooms in the event of a school shooting. 6 These types of training and interventions proposed have rarely been evaluated, despite an escalating demand for both.…”

School safety and violence: Research and clinical understandings, trends, and improvement strategies

“…The most promising means of preventing school shootings is through the use of behavioral threat assessment and intervention teams. Threat assessments are designed to help schools channel assistance to students with unresolved grievances or other mental health needs, without overreacting to threats that are not serious (Cornell, 2020; Cornell et al., 2017; National Association of School Psychologists, 2020). We are in the early stages of studying of behavioral threat assessments.…”

Conductas violentas en primaria Nivel Básico, Medio Superior y Superior

“…Es decir, en una muestra de participantes similares, los niveles de agresión física se redujeron en aproximadamente 41%; sin embargo, no se pueden explicar las posibles causas de esta disminución. Se podría especular que en cinco años se han desarrollado mayores estrategias globales para fomentar la conciencia social acerca de la importancia de reducir la violencia en el ámbito escolar (Cornell, 2020;Q. Chen et al, (2020;Taylor, 2020).…”