DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37680
title: Brevard Public Schools School Climate and Safety Study, Florida, 2015-2018
title: Archival Version

description: The Brevard County (Florida) School Board conducted a school climate and safety study between the years of 2015 and 2018 with students, school personnel, and school resource officers from law enforcement. The purpose of the study was to implement a comprehensive mental health program that involved placing social workers in schools. The intervention involved training personnel on youth mental health and an emotion regulation intervention for high discipline youth. The evaluation of the program involved pretest/posttest assessments of the trainings, and surveys of students and school personnel to assess improvements in the school environment. The evaluation of the program was a nonexperimental, longitudinal study.
description: The goal of this study was to evaluate a mental health program that sought to improve school climate and safety. The three primary objectives were to:

Train school personnel on strategies to identify and response to students' needs.
Increase mental health services available to students and their families.
Train school resource officers on crisis intervention techniques.
description: Five target schools were selected to participate in the program. These schools were located in low income areas of Brevard county and were selected due to high rates of discipline incidents. The five schools represented a "feeder" pattern in which four elementary schools were selected that feed students into one large middle and high school. The four elementary schools offered the program for the full three years of implementation; the middle/high school stopped offering the program at the start of the Spring 2018 school year (the last year of implementation). Three comparison schools were also selected by the school board with the goal being to choose schools which had similar rates of discipline incidents, students enrolled, and community characteristics. Surveys were administered at all 8 schools every semester from Fall 2015 to Spring 2017.
To participate in the student-level evaluation, parent consent and student assent was required. To be involved in the school-wide surveys and training evaluations, passive consent (i.e., completion of surveys implied consent) was required. The evaluation had three components which assessed program impacts at: (1) the school-level (i.e., aggregate effects), (2) among students who participated in the program, and (3) across trainings.
The evaluation involved anonymous surveys of students and staff, confidential interviews of students that receive services, and anonymous pre- and post-evaluations of the trainings.
description: <strong>DS1 to DS3: Grades 1 to 3 Interview</strong>

Demographics only in Baseline (DS1) file - gender, grade, and race
6-items of delinquent acts ever done at school plus a combined computed score of those acts

<strong>DS4 to DS6: Grades 4 to 12 Interview</strong>

Demographics only in Baseline (DS4) file - gender, grade, and race
Questions on number of days suspended from school and skipped school in the past 6-months
6-items of delinquent acts ever done at school plus a combined computed score of those acts

<strong>DS7 and DS8: Grades 4 to 12 Student Survey</strong>

3-items of being a victim of delinquent acts during the current semester plus a combined computed score of those acts
7-items of being bullied at school during the current semester plus a combined computed score of those acts
Presense of gangs at the school

<strong>DS9 and DS10: School Personnel Survey</strong>

12-items of personally witnessing student delinquency during the current semester plus a a combined computed score of those acts
8-items of knowing about problems at the school plus a combined computed score of those acts
6-items of personally being a victim of student delinquency plus a combined computed score of those acts

<strong>DS11: Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS)</strong>

Combined file of pre-test and post-test scores
Items covering 6-domains: life functioning (14), youth strengths (11), acculturation (4), caregiver strengths and needs (11), youth behavioral needs (9), and youth risk behaviors (10)
Computed score for each domain and overall for both pre- and post-test

<strong>DS12: Crisis Intervention Training for Youth (CIT-Y)</strong>

Pre-test and post-test designed to measure training effectiveness of CIT-Y
Pre-test completed the same day as the training, and the post-test completed immediately afterwards
Respondents were law enforcement officers from local police and sherriff departments
Basic demographics include education, age, ethnicity, race, and gender
Questions on confidence to recognize issues in children and communicate with them
Overall feelings of agreement on mental health issues

<strong>DS13: Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA)</strong>

Pre-test and post-test designed to measure training effectiveness of YMHFA
Pre-test completed the same day as the training, and the post-test completed immediately afterwards
Respondents were school personnel of which about 70% were teachers
Basic demographics include gender, ethnicity, race, education, and role in school
Questions on confidence to identify or have knowledge about warning signs regarding suicide and self-harm
Overall feelings of agreement on mental health issues
Questions on how they might deal with a hypothetical situation of good student they notice going through a hard time
description: None.
description: Response Rates: The average response rate across semesters was 76% for the
student surveys and 88% for the school personnel surveys.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Please refer to the final page of each P.I. Codebook for detailed references regarding scales and measures that items were adapted from.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Baseline Interview - Grades 1 to 3
DS2: After Services Interview - Grades 1 to 3
DS3: 6-Month Follow-Up Interview - Grades 1 to 3
DS4: Baseline Interview - Grades 4 to 12
DS5: After Services Interview - Grades 4 to 12
DS6: 6-Month Follow-Up Interview - Grades 4 to 12
DS7: Baseline (Fall 2015) Student Survey - Grades 4 to 12
DS8: Follow-Up (Spring 2017) Student Survey - Grades 4 to 12
DS9: Baseline (Fall 2015) School Personnel Survey
DS10: Follow-Up (Spring 2017) School Personnel Survey
DS11: Child and Adolescent Needs and Strategies (CANS)
DS12: Crisis Intervention Training for Youth (CIT-Y)
DS13: Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA)
description: Students in grades 1 to 12, associated school personnel, and law enforcement officers located in Brevard County, Florida. Smallest Geographic Unit: None
description: paper and pencil interview (PAPI); web-based survey