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 **Learning Lessons from Averted Acts
              of Violence in Schools** February 2018 | Volume 11 | Issue 2
  **Introduction** Every year acts of violence are prevented in schools by students, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, school resource officers, and others in the community. What have we learned from these averted acts of school violence, and how can those lessons help other schools protect our children and their staffs? **Averted Acts of Violence in Schools**
The Police  Foundation—a national non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to  improving policing through innovation and science—has initiated a project, with  funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented  Policing Services and the National Institute of Justice, to study “averted acts  of school violence.” The project is based on the concept of “near miss,” which  has been used to inform the business practices in the aviation, fire, and  medical professions. The near miss concept holds that for every incident that  occurs, there are significantly more averted incidents. These averted incidents  contain invaluable information regarding the strengths or potential weaknesses  of current policies, procedures, training and methods. The Police  Foundation has built a national database to record incidents of averted and/or  completed acts of school violence. The national database collects and analyzes  data regarding averted incidents to identify best, and more importantly, “next”  practices to prevent and respond to acts of violence in our schools. **Definition of Averted School Violence**
          The Police  Foundation defines an averted school violence incident as a violent attack  planned with or without the use of a firearm, that was prevented either before  or after the potential perpetrator arrived on school grounds, before any injury  or loss of life occurred. The Police Foundation only collects incidents that  occurred in the United States after the Columbine tragedy in 1999. **What Are Some of the Lessons We  Have Learned?**
			Police  Foundation subject matter experts and school representatives have reviewed  approximately 41 incident reports that have been entered into the averted  school violence database. These averted incidents were identified primarily  from open source news stories and court documents. The Police Foundation also develops  incident reports on completed acts of school violence, and is currently working  with subject matter experts to review these reports and provide lessons learned  before entry into the database. The Police Foundation has conducted preliminary  analysis on the 41 averted school violence incident reports.1 To date,  the team has identified the following lessons learned: Schools  and law enforcement must have a strong, pre-established relationship and open  lines of communication before an attack occurs.
          Students  who hear threats of violence from other students should take them seriously and  report them to school or other authorities immediately. Based on our  preliminary study, in over half of the open source incidents we studied,  students were the first to discover another student’s plans for school violence.  (*See figure 1 below)* Figure 1: A student peer initially discovered the attack plan in 24 incidents.
 Students should be trained not only to recognize threats of violence, but also recognize  signs for suicide or depression.
          Parents  should monitor their child’s social media accounts and remain aware of their  general Internet use for any concerning searches or violent material.
          Parents  should take their children’s threats of violence seriously and seek assistance  from law enforcement, mental health professionals, and other service providers.
          Parents  should keep all guns in a locked and secure location if they are in the home.
          School  personnel and SROs should strive to develop and maintain rapport with students so  they are aware of students who are bullied, feel excluded, depressed, or  challenged in other ways so they can connect them to services.
          Schools  must continuously update and practice their emergency communication systems and  response plans.
          Schools  should have a plan in place for timely communication of incidents to parents.
          Potential  perpetrators of violence frequently use social media platforms such as  Facebook, Instagram, and even Snapchat to openly discuss their violent plans or  thoughts, or to express disdain for a school/situation. (*See figure 2 below)*  Figure 2: Violent plot was discovered in 20 incidents by the perpetrator telling somebody about their violent plans/threats or mentioning their violent plans on social media.
 Schools,  particularly universities and higher education, should be aware that financial  distress can be a trigger for violence.
          Schools  should notify all staff when a student is suspended or expelled. That student  should not be allowed back on campus the same day of the suspension or  expulsion.
          Schools  should direct safety concerns through a team to review the concerns, not just  one single person.
          Schools  must be vigilant at entrance locations and have sufficient staff to process and  observe individuals entering the school. **Benefits of Submitting and Viewing  ASV Reports**
          By submitting  and viewing ASV reports, you can both improve school safety in your school  district as well as help other school safety professionals across the country  to improve safety in their districts. The database has a number of specific  benefits both to the report submitters, and to the individuals who review the  report library. Averted  and carried out school attacks can provide insights into the effectiveness of  existing school safety efforts nationwide.
          The  ASV incident report library contains valuable information related to school  security, averted attackers, successful discovery and prevention of attacks,  lessons learned, and recommendations.
          ASV  incident reports can help prevent future violence when relevant lessons learned  and recommendations are implemented into the policy, procedure and training of  those who are engaged in school safety.
          ASV reporting is anonymous, and submitted  reports are additionally scrubbed to remove any identifying information about  the school, perpetrator, or report submitter.
          We can provide aggregate regional, state-level  or other analysis of ASV incidents, if such information was provided in the  reports submitted, however the state will not be published in the public ASV report  form. **ASV Reporting Process**
          The online  incident report form is broken into various categories. The main categories  contain questions related to basic school information and security, information  about the averted or carried out attack, information about the perpetrator or  potential perpetrator, and a section to identify lessons learned from how the  incident was handled. 
 The  documentation section allows the report submitter to attach any relevant  documents if applicable. While we encourage report submitters to answer as many  questions as possible to allow for the most robust data collection and  analysis, all questions in the form are optional. If report submitters do not  feel comfortable providing incident data, we still encourage them to complete  the lessons learned and recommendations section. These recommendations and  lessons learned can still play an important role in helping other schools  prevent acts of violence. Lessons learned and recommendations can cover any  aspect of the attack or averted attack- from physical school safety mechanisms,  to safety drills and procedures, to the level of communication that played a  role as the incident was addressed or prevented. As  previously mentioned, the report form can be filled out anonymously. We only  suggest providing basic contact information if the submitter is unable to  complete the form in one sitting and wants to be able to return to the same question  form. Once a  form is submitted, school safety subject matter experts remove identifying  information as necessary, and provide additional lessons learned and/or  recommendations. Subject matter experts have backgrounds in counseling  psychology, campus security and law enforcement, risk management, and threat  assessments. Experts have additionally conducted previous research on averted  and carried out attacks. During the  review process, the report form is NOT available publicly on the website. Only  after review by subject matter experts and the Police Foundation will the report  be published in the report library at www.asvnearmiss.org. In fact, when the scrubbed  version of a report is completed, that version overwrites and permanently deletes  the originally submitted report. Had the originally submitted version contained  any identifying information, it is permanently deleted. Reports are searchable  and categorized by fields such as type of school, means of plot discovery, types  of weapons acquired by the perpetrator, date of the attack or planned attack, and  more. **Conclusion**
          The  Averted School Violence database holds great promise in informing school safety  policies, procedures and practices through a robust library of incidents,  lessons learned and best practices. By carefully analyzing the incidents  recorded in the database and the lessons learned, SROs, school administrators,  teachers and parents can strengthen current programs and identify next  practices to ensure the safety and security of our schools. The Police  Foundation needs you to help expand the data collected, and thereby grow the  lessons learned to benefit you, your department, or school. If you have been  involved in an averted act of violence, you can complete an incident report  form at www.asvnearmiss.org. The website is mobile-device friendly. By Sarah  Solano, Frank Straub, and John Rosiak **For more  information on the Averted School Violence project, contact:**
          Sarah  Solano, ssolano@policefoundation.org, 202-833-1469. Look for a  future Journal of School Safety article on the roles of SROs in averting school  violence. *Authors:  Sarah Solano is a Project Assistant for the Police Foundation, where Frank  Straub, Ph.D. is Director of Strategic Studies. John Rosiak is Principal of  Prevention Partnerships.* References:1 The data shown was collected from 41 open source incidents of averted school violence between 1999 and 2017 using media stories and available court documents. Incidents were selected at random to populate the database. The analysis is preliminary, and it is recognized that the total number of reports represents a small sample size. Question fields are not mutually exclusive, which is why some questions display a total number of answers that is greater than the total number of incidents. Additionally, certain fields were unknown or unable to be answered from open sources, resulting in missing answers for particular questions. Tweet
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