Target Audience: Special Education Teachers, Special Educator Directors, Principal, School Psychologist, and School Resource Officer to come as a team

What can we do to assure the safety of our students and their sense of feeling safe? The nationally recognized Virginia Threat Assessment Model is an evidence based approach to threat assessment. Rather than rely on unrealistically heroic measures, this model presents a less dramatic but more practical prevention approach that can be implemented well before a gunman appears on school property. Strategies to maintain school safety must be based on a factual assessment of the risk of violent crime and objective evidence of what prevention methods are effective. Although school homicides are rare, the threat of a homicide cannot be dismissed and must be carefully distinguished from more commonplace, less serious threats. Prevention efforts must be informed by an assessment of the factors that precede homicides and how would-be perpetrators can be identified before the shooting starts. The Virginia Threat Assessment Model is unique in that it has been validated through multiple field studies and experimental designs. Schools and districts who implement the Virginia Threat Assessment Model along with a school wide, positive approach to discipline experience fewer office discipline referrals, suspensions, reports of bullying and acts of violence. Moreover, students report feeling safe!

It is recommended that schools/districts send teams (3-4 participants per team –Special Education Teachers, Administrators, School Psychologist,  Principal/Admin., Counselor, Psychologist, & SRO).