School safety is an important concern for the more than 49.5 million students and staff in schools across the country. It is fundamental to addressing and preventing youth violence, and fostering positive student well-being, academic achievement, and prosocial...
The following considerations may prove helpful to staff as you plan and prepare for students returning to the classroom: Consider School Safety Strategies Implementing restorative practices or social-emotional learning curriculums can help support student...
The following considerations may prove helpful to caregivers as you plan and prepare for students returning to the classroom: Build Healthy Routines The Supporting Youth Mental Health On-Demand Webinar provides guidance on building habits to support the mental...
School Resource Officers (SROs) are present in many communities across the country. SROs must be youth advocates, educators, and protectors of all students in the schools they serve. This video series helps SROs consider the way students think, how to connect with...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released Delivering Service in School-Based Settings: A Comprehensive Guide to Medicaid Services and Administrative Claiming. The guide offers new flexibilities and consolidates existing guidance, making it...
Researchers developed a comprehensive model of school safety to describe the multiple pathways that contribute to school safety and positive youth development. This comprehensive model is designed to help practitioners and policymakers understand how the strategies...
This toolkit was created by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC). The toolkit includes simple strategies and guidance that K-12 schools and school districts can use to...
Definition Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) is a form of violence risk assessment that assesses individuals who have threatened harm. In a school context, a multidisciplinary team works together to promote safety and prevent violence that may impact...
In their most recent study, the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) examined 67 disrupted plots against K-12 schools from 2006-2018. The key findings of the study are clear and consistent: Individuals contemplating violence often...
Data compiled from 2018-2021 STOP grantee survey responses and NCSS review of 2021 STOP proposals. Purpose The Training Needs Assessment is a tool that allows NCSS to better understand STOP grantee experiences implementing school safety strategies, their specific...
Definition Restorative practices (RP) are intended to involve all parties affected by a specific offense or situation in order to understand and address the problem. They aim to ensure the needs, harms, and obligations are addressed in an effort to...
The Students, Teachers, Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Grant Program is designed to improve K-12 school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and help prevent acts of violence and ensure a...
Data visualization allows data to be presented in an easily-digestible, visual format which reveals patterns and trends. It helps people make sense of the information they are being presented with, and when done well, it allows them to better understand what the data...
Definition Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is an approach to education that supports students’ learning skills and strategies to help them be successful in interpersonal relationships, make healthy choices, and prepare for life beyond the...
NIJ-funded researchers from RTI International partnered with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina to conduct a randomized controlled trial of two particular types of evidence-based treatments, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and structured psychotherapy...
This publication from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) provides an overview of the literature on school safety in the United States, with a focus on equity. Using the framework developed by the NIJ, this publication situates a comprehensive school safety...
The need for developmentally appropriate crisis response services for youth is acute. Yet, while many crisis response systems have robust services in place for adults, there are often considerable gaps in the capacity to serve youth and families. Too often, youth...
Retention of staff and effective transitions are important for the sustainability of school safety projects. However, all organizations have to manage changes in personnel, and planning is necessary to ensure continuity when the composition of a team changes. This...
As more schools become involved in social media monitoring and response, a variety of logistical, technological, and ethical challenges appear. This document highlights example practices, concerns, and methods for social media monitoring in a school setting. Also...
The U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS) provides services to communities to respond to community tension and allegations of bias and hate incidents. This CRS toolkit contains best practices, strategies, and resources for supporting safe and...
School Resources Officers (SROs) have become more consistently present in schools around the country. But how do students, teachers, principals, and parents perceive the role and effectiveness of SROs? To help answer this question, researchers from Michigan...
This video was created and produced by Lynn Fountain, Production Assistant at the National Center for School Safety. When done correctly, information sharing is a crucial part of any school system and should be used to prevent incidents and protect students, staff,...
Anonymous Reporting Systems (ARS) have been widely implemented in schools across the United States as a violence prevention strategy. In this video, Dr. Libby Messman describes a systematic review of published literature from the last 25 years on the use of Anonymous...
This 2020 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report details the model and best practices for comprehensive school safety determined through four years of research conducted under the NIJ’s Comprehensive School Safety Initiative (CSSI). The NIJ developed a...
