Today we are living in an era of two pandemics--the COVID-19 global health pandemic and the racial inequity pandemic--and at the same time, anxiety over school shootings is increasing. When assessing school-based threats of violence, equitable procedures and protocols are needed to guide decision-making and ensure that high-level interventions are…

Devastating school shootings have spawned a cottage industry of untested responses to school violence. Some involve target hardening, or making schools less vulnerable to violent attacks. School administrators and community members can be quick to gravitate towards target hardening measures for preventing school violence. However, crime prevention…

School psychologists are uniquely qualified to provide direct and indirect support to students, parents, educators, schools, and districts. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Practice Model outlines the 10 domains that interact with each other to meet the needs of students, schools, and communities, and demonstrate the broad…

February 14 marked the 1-year anniversary of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and April 20 marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy at Columbine. Much progress has been made over the last 20 years in the understanding of threat assessment, crisis preparedness, and the importance of increasing…

This article reviews the development of the Southeastern School Behavioral Health Community (SSBHC), which began in 2013 to bring coherence to the school behavioral health (SBH) agenda in South Carolina and has since expanded to become a regional effort in the southeastern United States. The term SBH is used to convey community mental health…

At the request of President Trump in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, a Federal Commission on School Safety was assembled to provide meaningful and actionable recommendations to maintain student safety in schools. This article summarizes the overarching points of the Commission's report and shares concerns raised the National Association of…

Shortly after the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and six school staff members on December 14, 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy established the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission to review laws, policies, and practices in place at the time to make recommendations to reduce the probability of another attack.…

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT (USA) has brought the conversation about how to reduce violence, make schools safer, improve school climate, and increase access to mental health services to the forefront of the national conversation. Advocating for comprehensive initiatives to address school safety, school climate, and…

April 20, 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy that took the lives of 12 students, a teacher, and two teen killers in 1999. This school shooting affected people worldwide who watched on television as police circled the building and terrified students fled the school with hands raised over their heads. The Columbine…

This article presents summaries of three recent crisis management publications: (1) "School Violence: Associations With Control, Security/Enforcement, Educational/Therapeutic Approaches, and Demographic Factors," reviewed by Ashlee Barton; (2) "The Relationship Between Cognitive Coping Styles and PTSD in Survivors of Traffic Accidents," summarized…

Effective discipline is essential to creating safe, supportive learning environments for all students, which is critical to academic achievement. Since the passage of zero tolerance policies in the early 1990s, many school districts have relied on punitive discipline focused on harsh strategies such as using suspension and expulsion as primary…

Over the past decade, catastrophic earthquakes have garnered international attention regarding the need for improving immediate and ongoing support services for disrupted communities. Following the December 26, 2004 Indonesian earthquake, the Indian Ocean tsunami was responsible for displacing millions and taking the lives of an estimated 320,000…

New Brunswick is a small Maritime province in Canada bordering on Maine. With just 700,000 people, the population is clustered in small cities and towns. Nevertheless, tragedies happen here as they do elsewhere and there is a need to be prepared. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) had developed PREPaRE, a curriculum founded…