The Santa Cruz County Promoting Healthy Students Initiative

The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program (SSV Program) furthers the Department’s mission by supporting and assisting state, county, local, territorial, and tribal jurisdictions in improving efforts to reduce violent crime in and around schools. BJA’s SSV Program aims to improve school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and help prevent acts of violence. The goal is to address two specific areas of concern related to preventing and reducing school violence: 1) training on preventing violence and 2) threat assessment/intervention teams and/or technology. SSV recipients implementing a training project will use funds to train school personnel and educate students on preventing student violence against others and themselves, to include anti-bullying training. This can also include specialized training for school officials to respond to mental health crises. SSV recipients using funds to conduct threat assessments and/or intervention teams to identify school violence risks among students must coordinate between law enforcement and school personnel. Recipients may also use grant funds for technological solutions such as anonymous reporting technology implemented as a mobile phone-based app, a hotline, or a website in the applicant’s geographic area to enable students, teachers, faculty, and community members to anonymously report threats of school violence; or other school safety strategies that assist in preventing violence. CA/NCF