School Safety Success Stories
featuring the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Office of School Safety (OSS)

Over the last year, an initiative that the OSS undertook as part of a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) School Violence Prevention and Mental Health STOP Grant, was to develop and train participants of 12 regionally based Critical Incident Response (CIR) teams across Wisconsin. The teams are comprised of multidisciplinary volunteers who are trained in crisis response and intervention. The training provided CIR team members with evidence-based crisis interventions to promote recovery after a crisis event.

If a critical incident occurs within a school community, a regional crisis team is available to work with the school-based team to supplement the resources and the support networks that are already in place. The CIR team members will work with impacted schools and will provide a right-sized, solutions-oriented approach to crisis response and recovery best practices that “do no harm”.

The OSS is proud of this initiative; our stakeholders, along with our Attorney General, are praising our successes.