President’s Letter: School Counselors and Threat Assessment

As school counselors across Illinois continue to experience an increase in student mental health issues, they are called upon to prepare prevention activities, engage in intervention planning and implementation and serve as leaders in crisis response. No doubt the recent tragedy in Parkland, Fla., has escalated dialogue in your schools about how to prevent such tragedies from occurring. School counselors can be leaders in developing threat assessment models that prevent incidents and most important, provide effective interventions for students.

School counselors should always be supported by a team when assessing threats. Depending on available staff and community resources, school counselor responsibilities for threat assessments may have a wide range. However, in all cases, the training of school counselors can provide a framework of understanding for the factors that contribute to the implementation of threat assessment models.

An important concept to remember is that students who pose imminent threats have had feelings of harming self or others and rarely decide to take action with no reason. Always work in collaboration and consult with other school personnel when determining threat levels. Finally, once the threat to self or others is assessed for its severity, action steps are taken. For students expressing suicidal ideation, always contact parents/guardians and share appropriate referrals for mental health assessment. If students are making threats, it is important to maintain supervision in a safe location until parents, police or other supports are available.

Key Questions for School Counselors
     How do I know when and how to involve others in the threat assessment process?
     How do I check on my bias in the process?
     How do I balance advocating for my client/student and the well-being of others?
     How can schools foster self-care for counselors involved in threat assessments?

Action Plans for School Leaders

• Assess the school's emotional climate.
• Work actively to change the perception that talking to an adult about a student contemplating violence is considered snitching.
• Address all bullying concerns.
• Empower students by involving them in planning, creating, and sustaining a school culture of safety and respect.

Next Steps

1. Assess how your school has handled threats to self and/or other in the past.
2. To what degree has the threat assessment process in your school been consistent?
3. How well are all administrators, student support personnel, deans, community resources and teachers trained in the roles to handle threats?
4. Is your school consistently submitting “Clear and Present Danger” forms to the Illinois State Police when there is an imminent threat?
5. Identify strengths and gaps of your schools threat models and make revisions.

To fully implement effective threat assessment models for self and others, it is important to involve teams of school professionals. Once models are developed, regular training on the use and implementation of the models is vital. Revisiting the models on a consistent basis also provides opportunities for revision as needed. School counselors can serve as facilitators, perfectionists, interventionists and most important, as leaders to protect the safety of their students and schools.

(Revised excerpt from ISCA Fall 2016 newsletter)

Contact Vince Walsh-Rock, ISCA president, at vwalsh-rock@csd99.org.