Safe
Communities ~ Safe Schools (SCSS):
Some Emerging Lessons and Recommendations
Safe Communities ~
Safe Schools:
Over the last year, the Safe Communities ~ Safe
Schools initiative launched a statewide 63-county effort
to help create safe schools and safe communities. The
initiative seeks to develop an understanding of youth
violence in Colorado and promote effective solutions
to address the challenge of youth violence in our communities.
As part of this effort, over 60 youth violence prevention
forums have been held throughout Colorado. This report
sets forth the recommendations of the Colorado Attorney
General, The Colorado Trust, and the Center for the
Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of
Colorado at Boulder.
Purposes: The Safe Communities ~ Safe
Schools effort is:
- Making available to Colorado’s 1500 schools
assistance with safe school planning required by Colorado
law;
- Conducting an intensive effort in 16 school communities
in Colorado over 3 years to develop an understanding
of youth violence in our schools and effective solutions
to address the challenge of youth violence; and
- Helping communities identify proven effective programs
to address youth violence, such as the 30 Blueprints
and Promising Programs of the Center for the Study
and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado
at Boulder.
Recommendations:
- The Colorado Trust is funding a $10 million After School initiative, targeting 4th through 9th grade students in Colorado. We commend this investment in programs that will provide supervision and activities for our Colorado youth in the critical time period after school ends and before parents are home from work in the evenings. The After School initiative is part of The Trust’s continuing effort to help our communities address the issues of youth violence. The Colorado Trust is also the primary funder of the Safe Communities-Safe Schools initiative.
- We recommend that the Legislature fund a Bullying
Prevention program in Colorado schools in 2001. As
part of this project, we will develop training capacity
at the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
at the University of Colorado at Boulder to implement
this program in additional Colorado schools.
- Colorado schools should implement character
education training for our youth.
- Colorado schools and communities need additional
assistance to undertake effective safe school planning
efforts (Safe School planning is more than developing
a crisis response plan).
- Each Colorado school should go through a safety
assessment to determine the issues that must be addressed
in each school.
- Schools and communities should implement proven,
effective programs to address the violence issues
in their schools. These are programs that have been
evaluated and have shown concrete, positive results
which are sustainable over time.
- Colorado schools and communities should look at
the 30 Blueprints and Promising Programs of the Center
for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University
of Colorado at Boulder, and other innovative promising
programs, for implementation in their schools if the
school safety assessment identifies issues that can
be addressed by those programs. When new, innovative
programs are implemented, they must be evaluated for
effectiveness. (Exhibit A, information on the Blueprints
programs, is attached to this report.)
- Colorado should undertake a review of existing drug
prevention programs for youth, and develop recommendations
to make changes and implement only programs that have
proven demonstrated results in reducing the onset
of drug usage.
The Good News:
- Schools are safe places: Only 1%
of homicides involving school-aged youth occur at
schools. In 1998, students were twice as likely to
be victims of serious violence while away from school
as at school (Kachur, et al., 1996; Kaufman et al.,
2000);
- Decrease in Crime: Crime and violence
are down in our communities: There is less chance
of becoming a victim of violent crime now than in
the last 30 years (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999);
Effective Programs: Unlike ten years ago, we now know
of effective programs that can dramatically reduce
problems with young people, including drug usage and
bullying (Elliott, 1998).
The Bad News:
- Fear: 74% of parents fear a Columbine-like
incident could occur in their schools (Gallup, 1999);
High Prevalence of Serious Violence: The proportion
of students (grades 9-12) threatened/injured with
a weapon on school property remains high (7-8%) and
unchanged since 1993 (Kaufman et al., 2000);
- Girls and Violence: The gender
gap in serious violence is declining. Currently, three
males are involved in aggravated assaults for every
female. In 1983 the gap was 5 to 1 (Snyder and Sickmund,
1999);
- Drug Use: Marijuana use remains
high and has not declined since 1993. One third of
9-12th graders report that someone has offered, sold
or given them an illegal drug at school (Kaufman et
al., 2000).
Some Emerging Lessons from
the Initiative:
- Statewide issue: Youth violence
knows no boundaries – rural, urban, suburban;
- Bullying: Bullying is a major problem
in Colorado schools. It is estimated that more than
10,000 students (grades 9-12) stay home at least once
every 30 days because they are afraid to go to school
(Nationally, it is estimated that 500,000 young people—grades
9-12, stay home at least once every 30 days because
of fear of bullying) (Kann, et al., 2000);
- Drugs: Drugs are prevalent in communities
among high school and middle school-aged youth;
- Gangs: Gang activity is present
in many areas of Colorado, and is not confined to
the Denver Metro area;
- Youth Responsibility: Youth recognize
their own important role in addressing the issues
of violence;
- Parental Responsibility: Youth
want adults, especially their parents, to demonstrate
how much they care about them and to be involved in
their lives despite contrary signals they may sometimes
give;
- Character Education: Character
education teaches respect for others and for oneself.
There is a need in our schools for us to teach respect
for one another. Character education is one approach
to accomplish that objective.
Five Steps to Safe School
Planning:
- Create a safe school planning team;
- Do a safety assessment;
- Develop a social support team – small team
which is repository of information and can take action;
- Implement only proven effective programs; and
- Develop crisis management plan.
Six Characteristics of a Safe
School:
- High academic expectations and performance;
- High levels of parental and community involvement;
- Effective leadership by administrators and teachers;
- Few, but clearly understood and uniformly enforced,
rules;
- After school – extended day programs; and
- Promotion of character education and good citizenship.
Conclusion:
The focus on youth violence provides Colorado with
a unique opportunity to address the challenge of violence
facing our communities and to make our schools safer.
Our focus is on solutions and prevention, addressing
the core issues that lead to very serious problems.
Safe schools are welcoming places where teachers can
teach and students can learn without fear or intimidation.
Creating safe communities and schools is a prerequisite
for improving learning and academic performance.
Partners:
Safe Communities-Safe Schools partners: The Colorado
Trust, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado Attorney
General Ken Salazar, Colorado Department of Education,
Colorado Association of School Boards, Colorado Association
of School Executives, Colorado Federation of Teachers,
Colorado Education Association, Metro Denver and Front
Range Safe and Drug-Free School Coordinators, Coors
Brewing Company, Colorado Department of Public Safety—Division
of Criminal Justice, and the University of Colorado
at Boulder.
EXHIBIT A
The Blueprints Programs
The Blueprints are eleven programs that have been rigorously
evaluated and meet a very high scientific standard of
program effectiveness in dealing with violence prevention.
They show long-term and measurable results in multiple
settings.
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
at the University of Colorado at Boulder has reviewed
evaluations of more than five hundred programs and,
out of these, only eleven programs have met the standards
to be called Blueprints.
A brief description of each of the Blueprints follows:
- Bullying Prevention (Bullying Prevention Program). [Now known as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program]. Reduces
victim and bullying problems among grade school and
secondary school children. It aims to change the social
climate of the school by increasing awareness of and
appropriate responses to bullying, active involvement
on the part of teachers and parents, and developing
and enforcing rules against bullying behavior. It also
provides support and protection for the victims of bullying.
- Drug Prevention (Life
Skills Training). Provides every day life skills
training to junior high/middle school students, including
training in general self-management skills, social skills,
and provides information and skills related to preventing
drug use.
- Drug Prevention (Midwestern
Prevention Project). This community-based program
targets adolescent drug use. The program uses five intervention
strategies designed to combat the community influences
on drug use: mass media, school, parent, community organization,
and health policy change. The primary intervention channel
is the junior high/middle school.
- Drug Prevention (Project Towards No Drug Abuse). [Added as Blueprint in 2002]. Project TND is a drug abuse prevention program that targets high school age youth at traditional and alternative high schools. The curriculum, taught by teaches or health educators, contains twelve 40-minute interactive sessions, and focuses on motivations to use drugs, social skills, and cognitive processing skills.
- Mentoring (Big Brothers
Big Sisters of America). Big Brothers Big Sisters
of America is the oldest and best-known mentoring program
in the United States. The program serves six-to-eighteen-year-old
disadvantaged youth from single-parent households. The
goal is to develop a caring relationship between a matched
youth and an adult mentor through a professionally supported
match.
- Home Visitation (Prenatal and Infancy Home Visitation by Nurses). [Now known as Nurse Family Partnership]. Sends nurses to homes of first
pregnancy, at-risk mothers who are susceptible to infant
health and developmental problems. Improves prenatal
health and outcomes of pregnancy, children’s health
and development, development of a social support network,
and the mother’s personal development.
- Development of Emotional
Skills (PATHS). Elementary school program that
helps students develop skills in understanding, expressing
and regulating their emotions.
- Foster Care (Multidimensional
Treatment Foster Care). An alternative to residential
treatment for chronically delinquent adolescents at
risk for incarceration. The program provides structured
and therapeutic living with foster parents.
- Drop Out Prevention
(Quantum Opportunities). [Removed as Blueprint in 2002 to reflect most recent evaluation results]. This program provides
education, development and service activities, coupled
with a sustained relationship with a peer group and
a caring adult over the four years of high school for
small groups of disadvantaged teens. The goal of the
program is to help high-risk youth from poor families
and neighborhoods to graduate from high school and attend
college. It also prevents delinquency and violence.
- Family Therapy (Multisystemic
Therapy). A program targeting twelve-to-seventeen-year-old
chronic and violent juvenile offenders. Helps parents
deal effectively with specific factors in their family
and their child’s life (family, peer, school,
neighborhood) that contribute to behavior problems,
such as poor school performance and deviant peers.
- Family Therapy (Functional
Family Therapy). A short-term program for eleven- to eighteen-year-old
youth at risk for or manifesting delinquency or conduct
disorders that helps change the way families communicate
and interact, and which helps families learn to utilize
outside system resources.
- Emotional and Social
Competence (The Incredible Years). Parent, teacher,
and child training to promote child emotional and social
competence for children ages two to eight.
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