This book is a reference primarily for school planners within the United States tasked with designing, implementing, and maintaining a safe school plan. Every school should have an effective, locality-specific emergency plan in place and this guide helpsyou do just that. Written by three experts with decades of experience in the school safety field, this guide takes you step-by-step through prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery, providing easy-to-use advice and checklists, as well as samples from safe-school planning documents currently in use.

Bullying. Gang assaults. Rampage shootings. School violence, especially when it turns deadly, has enduring social and psychological effects on students, faculty, staff, and the community. And though a great deal of research focuses on the significant role children’s positive social development plays in reducing incidents of school violence, in-depth examinations of evidence-based preventive measures have remained minimal until now. With its focus on averting lethal school violence, this unique volume translates the prosocial findings into practicable preventive measures that can be put to use in school settings. Making expert use of news reports as well as scholarly data, Preventing Lethal School Violence clarifies the links between bullying and lethal violence and delineates typical characteristics of school shooters while cautioning against outright profiling. Students’ awareness of self and others, strong connections with adults, and other social and ethical skills form the basis of a comprehensive, research-based model for reducing—and potentially eliminating—lethal incidents at school. This accessible volume: Outlines the scope of school violence as a broader social problem. Summarizes current information on the traits common to students who commit lethal violence at school. Examines the relationship between bullying/cyberbullying and rampage incidents. Analyzes examples of successful prevention of violent acts and resolution of hostage situations. Describes in detail the concept of positive school climate and introduces the Safe School Communities Model. Synthesizes key research data into violence prevention skills for students, teachers, administrators, and all professionals working in schools. Preventing Lethal School Violence is a must-have resource for researchers and professionals in school psychology and allied education disciplines, including school administration, school counseling, and social work.

The world is becoming more hazardous as natural and social processes combine to create increased vulnerability and risk. The response is to develop emergency plans, but there is little advice available on how to do so. This book covers the structure, content and strategic direction of such emergency plans.

Far too often, children and youth experience trauma, from rare events such as mass shootings, terrorism attacks, and school lockdowns, to very common occurrences such as bullying, exposure to drugs and alcohol, or various mental health issues. They can experience these events both directly and indirectly (from surfing the internet, watching television, or through their friends). Our children spend a large portion of their day at school interacting with other students, teachers, and school personnel, where these topics are raised and discussed. This edited volume addresses how our teachers and school personnel can help students deal with these potentially traumatic events to reach the most positive possible outcomes. This collection brings together leading experts, including academics and professionals working in the field, to provide the most current evidence-based practices on how to help students who may have experienced or witnessed trauma. It presents research and advice on how to respond to traumatic events regarding bullying; drugs and alcohol; sexual abuse; mental health; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) safety; stranger danger; childhood disruptive behaviors; school shootings and lockdowns; and terrorism. It also includes a chapter focused on how to implement a school safety program. Schools cannot deal with these issues alone; effective strategies must engage family members and the broader community. Hence, the collection includes a chapter on how schools can partner with families and the communities they reside in to bring about positive change. All this work pays close attention to cultural and religious sensitivity, socio-economic variabilities, diversity issues, and developmental stages.

This forward-looking monograph distills the current knowledge base on lethal school shootings for school professionals invested in improving school safety. Divided between correlates, interventions, and prevention, it begins with the Virginia Tech massacre as exemplifying the kinds of personal, environmental and social dynamics that commonly result in lethal violence on campus. Bullying as a causal factor in school violence is a specific focus of the findings, including immediate and long-term negative effects, psychology of bullies and victims and issues related to cyber bullying. And specialized chapters provide details on Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for victimized children and youth, treatment possibilities for bullies and an empirically-supported program for preventing further lethal events. Featured in this reference: Case study: Cho Seung-Hui. Correlates of school violence: bullying, psychopathy, ethnic and gender issues and more. Anti-bullying interventions. Treatment of traumatized children. Averted school shootings and resolved school hostage events. The Safe Schools Communities Model for violence prevention. For professionals working in and with schools in various capacities, optimizing safety is a top priority. Violence in Schools gives those readers clear direction toward achieving this crucial goal.

Meant to aid State & local emergency managers in their efforts to develop & maintain a viable all-hazard emergency operations plan. This guide clarifies the preparedness, response, & short-term recovery planning elements that warrant inclusion in emergency operations plans. It offers the best judgment & recommendations on how to deal with the entire planning process -- from forming a planning team to writing the plan. Specific topics of discussion include: preliminary considerations, the planning process, emergency operations plan format, basic plan content, functional annex content, hazard-unique planning, & linking Federal & State operations.