School Safety Plans: Building Prevention in Schools

From both education and substance use prevention research, we know that students cannot learn if they feel unsafe in their school environment.  To bond or connect with school, the school climate must be: Physically safe, emotionally safe, and socially safe. For many, school can be a haven from violence.[1]

So, school climate is one of three pillars of evidence-based prevention in schools—school climate, policy, and prevention curriculum—but is often viewed as outside the prevention mission. We are hosting Kris Bosworth, PhD.,  Head of the Program in Educational Leadership at the College of Education of the University of Arizona in Phoenix, Arizona (School) and member of APSI's Scientific Advisory Board who has studied evidence-based school safety and prevention planning. Dr. Bosworth will discuss how prevention professionals can get involved in school safety as an important building block to prevention schools.  

As background, every district and school need a school safety plan[2] that covers a range of issues requiring focused attention by those responsible for a positive and safe environment. A comprehensive plan will guide leaders in dealing with issues as they arise and help create the climate that will mitigate many safety related problems, as well as being prepared to respond to emergencies.

The school principal is responsible for creating, implementing and maintaining the plan, but all adults in a school community have responsibilities both on a daily basis and in times of crisis to ensure the safety of all in the school. The key components of a comprehensive plan include: Infrastructure, Prevention, Intervention and Response.

Dr. Bosworth will present a School Safety Plan Checklist and a description of these key components, what they are about, and what is required. We will also hear from a school principal who has carried out this plan in a real school. (we still need to determine if there will be a school principal).

Speaker's bio

Kris Bosworth, Ph.D., is Head of the Program in Educational Leadership at the College of Education of the University of Arizona in Phoenix, Arizona (School).  She holds the Lester L. and Roberta D. Smith Endowed Chair in Education with a focus on the prevention of substance abuse and other factors that put young people at risk. She teaches courses in school climate, the administration of prevention programs, and educational change. She was awarded the College of Education Service Award for 2003. She holds a Master’s in Counseling and Guidance, and a doctorate in Education from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She is the author of more than a dozen multimedia and video programs for young people with subjects that include AIDS, alcohol and drugs, sexuality, and violence. Her publications focus on the role of school culture and climate as a buffer for individual risk factors for risk taking behavior. She has combined her background in education with her training in prevention science to create processes that enable counselors and other educators to implement and sustain evidence based strategies in all levels of prevention implementation. Her model, Protective Schools, focuses on creating school climates and cultures that act a buffer to risk taking behaviors. This model which includes an assessment has been widely implemented in schools nationwide. These projects have earned awards from the American Medical Association National Congress on Adolescent Health (1989) and the Society for Technology and Teacher Education (1992), as well as the Exemplary Substance Abuse Prevention Programs Award from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) (2000).

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[1] APSI Course 3 – Building Evidence-based Prevention in Schools, 2021

[2] Comprehensive School Safety Plan Checklist, Kris Bosworth, Ph.D with Jean Ajamie, ADE, Sarah Lindstrom Johnson, ASU Jim Lee, ADE and  Caroline Champagne, University of Arizona, June 2020