SCHOOL VIOLENCE PREVENTION: Taking People from Inaction to "I can't believe we didn't start this sooner."

After each safety incident in schools (whether minor or severe) come the questions, the reflection, the scrutiny, and the regret that something wasn't done sooner. This is true for small and large risks faced, fights, disturbances, and by more devastating events and even those involving injury, loss, or death. The concern often shared by leaders is that something wasn't done about what was known beforehand, something the FBI terms as the leakage (i.e. intentions of a perpetrator) when warning signs were first learned about.

FBI Warning signs of violence in schools: https://tinyurl.com/Doll-FBI15-2019

Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nJqYXkpJ3A&t=181s

To solve problems on the scale of small to gigantic takes having counselors, therapists, and leaders who can take troubled young people (and adults too) through a process that brings hope back to them. In other words, it removes isolation, takes the sting away from rejection and/or humiliation, and help each person find meaning in their current and future situation.

But what about the adults? The fact is that lots of school and district systems are doing an incredible amount in school threat assessments, conducting equity audits of their behaviors (adult-adult, student-student, adult-student, and student-adult). School resource officers are also present in many schools. Yet at the same time, much work is in need of being done.

Starting with a Challenge

I want to start by placing in front of us a school or district that is not making very many intentional actions towards the broad safety of students, but is sitting contently thinking that that "already are safe." And yet without a system. Without training. Without policies or procedures. Without protocols. Without a response planned for many of the what ifs that occur during and after a crisis.

Since Columbine, schools and districts have been well-meaning to set up lockdown drills, even doing these multiple times per year or even up to dozens of times during a student's lifetime in school buildings. But does any of that really help that much? The research says otherwise, according to Dr. Jillian Peterson of Hamline University, who is studying how to prevent tragedies in schools

Kris Brown, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, argues that what has changed over the 20 years since Columbine has been the uptick in the level of fear that students and adults face when kids are at school. It's tragic, and it is what she rightly terms as a new normal.

What if we could change that? What if the new normal five years from now were simple and straightforward protocols for schools to follow with troublesome behaviors. Not more zero tolerance policies, which the Obama administration was correct to bring an end to. But instead, more proactive and supportive policies and the commonplace use of empathic, restorative practices with young people to give them a bigger feeling of a Future and a Hope, not more a Fear and sense of Hurt feelings.

So, what if?

So, again let's place a school or district in front of us that displays some classic symptoms of not wanting to change:

• Out of date policies that only create inflexible behaviors
• Supports that do not reach the student level for the students who are hurting most
• Continual use of exclusionary punishments (suspension, expulsion) without learning how to turn these behaviors - or leverage them - to become opportunities for greater success by students.
• Fear of losing control
• Fear of outsiders
• Fear of students
• Fear of parents
• Fear of...
• Fear

We might not want to admit it, but if fear really is the new normal, then it is something that we are going to have to tackle with both adults and with students.

Changing Fear Into Something More Manageable

Fear expresses itself differently in each person, and even more so dependent on the age and maturity of that person. Fear can create stubbornness that prevents change, or numbness to even do anything at all. It can move a person away from meeting the needs that they have so that they feel more pain (which they were afraid of) or greater consequences (which they wrongly hoped that fear would protect them from). Yes, fear does not reward those who cherish this emotion, but instead punishes as inequitably as a devastating disease or storm of nature does.

Fear for adults is often masked by behaviors that they already know all too well. Most adults move into a comfortable place of doing things the way they always did them because of fear. It prevents them from LEARNING how to release fear or even better to find its source and neutralize or repurpose/reframe it.

Adults should ask themselves where their fear comes from. Where would they be if the worst case scenario of their fear happened? It is likely true that this event did not happen yet, so there is time to act PROACTIVELY and INTENTIONALLY in the opposite direction of the fear that created a place for inaction. But if a negative experience already did occur, they can ask what they learned or what they (or the system they live in) needs to learn.

If you are working with a school leader that is guided by fear, ask them what their hope is for the school, for the district, for the students. Then ask them what hopeful things they have seen in the recent past couple or few years. It is often that people guided by fear simply lose sight of the greatest and most powerful memories of what things should look like. In a sense, they replace these positive notions with negative ideas that will only happen if they do not take consistent steps of prevention.

Translating Steps of Confidence into the Language and Experience of Young People

Fear for children often comes from earlier experiences in life where fear was justified. In other words, young people often have a hard, darkened, or painful memory that keeps them from moving far away from its power and presence in their mind, thoughts, and hopes. It's sadly like a ball and chain that a young person carries with them wherever they go. It prevents them from running with full force or passion in any direction until freedom is found & embraced.

Helping children get free from fear often takes small steps before large ones are possible. In other words, a fear of not being able to make friends takes continual words of kindness and consistent comfort from others while the feeling of fear decreases. It also takes belonging to a group that is bigger than the young person, which is something adults can help create a space for and build inclusive friendship behaviors into the school's culture.

Helping children take steps is just like helping adults take steps - it requires guidance, encouragement, and being present with sensitivity. They are steps forward, not backward. Steps toward addressing the needs of what is feared by action, not inaction, hesitance, or complacency.

The Next Steps Forward

In future articles, I will cover the importance of a process for developing positive behaviors in students (and adults). Also, I will make the threat assessment process clear and able to be scaled across buildings and levels. Finally, I will emphasize and reemphasize the importance of EVERY CHILD in a school having a HEALTHY ADULT in their lives. This is a school's and district's responsibility in the 21st century, instead of being an assumption that students have before they arrive at school.

However, these are all future conversations because to move from inaction to "I can't believe we didn't do this sooner," takes the opposite emotion of fear. And what is that? Confidence.

In closing, if confidence is our goal then we need to spend time building what our responsibilities are in that context. How can we help others to improve school safety? How can we build the behaviors in others that will translate to systems, policies, procedures, and protocols? Just like with other adults and with students, the answer is in taking steps in the right direction. Steps, and not just standing still and waiting for someone else to do the talking or the walking.

After we take steps forward, we will likely find that... there are more steps to take.

What is your next step after this?

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Dr. Jonathan Doll is the author of the book, Ending School Shootings: School and District Tools for Prevention and Action. He was the co-creator of the BADGE Preventing School Violence, 5-year conference series. He also gave a 2-day training/keynote at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama during their BADGE 2019 PREVENTING SCHOOL VIOLENCE CONFERENCE.

Learn more at www.endingschoolshootings.org.