This presentation will focus on the importance of partnerships in order to reduce and prevent school violence. Violence is the second leading cause of death for young people in America. School violence, while relatively low compared to other types of violence that children are exposed to, remains a serious concern for students, parents, teachers, and other health and education providers.
School violence is a complex problem, requiring a comprehensive approach. The best strategies for developing safe schools emphasize prevention and positive alternatives. A violence prevention plan that includes students, parents, teachers, administrators, health professionals, law enforcement officers, business and community leaders, and other youth-serving professionals, is more likely to succeed than a plan that simply focuses on profiling ‘violent’ youth.
Children’s Safety Network, (a group of resource centers funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau with the goal of assisting states, communities and others in child and adolescent injury prevention), has developed a series of factsheets on school violence prevention. The factsheets outline the scope of the problem, associated risk and resiliency factors, and interrelationships between different kinds of violence. The factsheets also describe a variety of levels on which professionals can intervene, and a range of potential activities. The sheets provide examples of successful strategies and policies, and concrete tools and methodologies for developing a comprehensive school violence prevention plan.
The presentation will describe a multi-faceted approach to school violence prevention, and will delineate a range of activities and levels on which professionals can become involved.
Learning Objectives: Participants will 1) Understand the importance of a comprehensive approach to school violence prevention, as well as the importance of partnering with diverse groups; 2) Be able to describe the roles of different groups within a school violence prevention partnership; 3) Be able to identify ways of forming broader partnerships, and strengthening existing ones; and 4) Be able to utilize tools such as the factsheets, the Spectrum of Prevention, 8 Steps to Coalition Building, and Mathematics of Interdisciplinary Collaboration to help design a comprehensive school violence prevention strategy.
Keywords: Violence Prevention, Collaboration
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.