STOP the Violence NOW

This application is submitted by NorthEast Washington Educational Service District (NEWESD) 101, an eligible applicant based in Spokane, WA. The project will serve seven counties in northeastern Washington – Adams, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens and Whitman counties.

Funding category: Category 2, Threat Assessment/Intervention and/or Technology.

Need: The applicant has created the first phase of a regional threat assessment program focused on school safety. Today, three commanding needs remain to complete the next phase: 1) expanding the current program to provide school threat assessment training for local law enforcement; 2) creating an anonymous reporting system to enhance the ability of schools and law enforcement to identify and respond to threats; and 3) extending the existing threat assessment program to every eligible school in the region.

At present, schools serving only about 70% of the region’s 101,382 students participate in the threat assessment program. Until the three remaining pieces are addressed, the region will not achieve its goal of a fully comprehensive system for stopping school violence.
 

Activities/deliverables: The project will undertake four primary activities to address the needs above. They include:

Creation of an annual School Safety Summit, an annual two-day conference for educators, law enforcement agencies, mental health providers and other social service providers on implementation of the Salem-Keizer Threat Assessment system. Focus areas will include the related areas of education, mental health and law enforcement.
Creation of an annual professional learning series for schools, community members and law enforcement agencies working in schools who serve on a community or Level 2 threat assessment team. Subject matter for the annual professional learning series will be jointly developed by project staff, local schools and local enforcement and will include a diverse range of topics including mental health treatment, trauma-informed practices, implicit bias, Internet safety, child abuse, family violence, gangs, human trafficking and youth impacted by opioids.
Creation of an anonymous reporting system to provide consistency in regional reporting, information processing and intervention. At present, most school districts have no formal reporting system, while a few have internal systems that do not interface with outside agencies. The system will allow anonymous tips to be submitted through a hotline, website and mobile app. 
Creation of community-based training supports through the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. The project will fund 50 ATAP memberships (an average of seven per county) to provide community access to training webinars and in-person seminars.