Guiding Children to Prevent VIOLENCE

Three-Level Approach to Prevent Violence among Children

• Provide Intensive Interventions for a Few Children

• Intervene Early for Some Children

• Build a Schoolwide Foundation for All Children

Build a Schoolwide Foundation Support positive discipline, academic success, and mental and emotional wellness through a caring school environment, teaching appropriate behaviors and problem solving skills, positive behavioral support and appropriate academic instruction.


Intervene Early Create services and supports that address risk factors and build protective factors for students at risk for severe academic or behavioral difficulties.

Provide Intensive Interventions Provide coordinated, comprehensive, intensive, sustained, culturally appro-priate, child-and family-focused services and supports.

No plan will make a school immune to violence. Never-theless, having a violence prevention and response plan in place reduces the likelihood of violence and helps schools respond quickly and effectively to violent incidents that may occur.



Compassionate, caring, respectful staff who model appropriate behaviors, create a climate of emotional support, and are committed to working with all students.

Developmentally appropriate programs for all children that teach and reinforce social and problem-solving skills.

Teachers and staff who are trained to support positive school and classroom behaviors.

Engaging curricula and effective teaching practices.

Child- and family-focused, culturally competent approaches.

Collaborative relationships with families, agencies, and community organizations.

These approaches alone are sufficient for most students’ needs, but they will not address fully the needs of all students. However, an effective foundation makes it easier to identify students who require additional interventions and increases the effectiveness of all interventions—both early and intensive.

Early intervention is necessary for those students who are at risk of academic failure or behavior problems. Early intervention, along with an appropriate foundation, is sufficient for almost all students.

Intensive Interventions
Intensive interventions are necessary for those students whose needs cannot be fully addressed by early intervention. Intensive interventions should always be individualized to a student’s needs and strengths. These interventions often involve multiple coordinated services, such as individualized special education services or interagency wraparound supports.

Safe Schools Combine All Three Levels
For a school to be safe for all children, all three levels must be in place. A school that builds a schoolwide foundation will still fail if it ignores the needs of children at risk of severe academic or behavioral problems or children who are seriously troubled. In most schools, a schoolwide
foundation will meet the needs of most students, while early intervention will address the needs of most of the other students. Individualized intensive interventions will be needed for a relatively small number of students.

Safe Schools Employ Teams Efficiently and Effectively
Each day, school personnel make important decisions about how to implement the best educational program for the entire school and how to provide the best education possible for specific students who may be experiencing difficulties. Effective schools usually form a small number of teams composed of professionals and support personnel who are responsible for these decisions.

This Action Guide recommends that schools employ two teams: one that addresses overall school performance and another that addresses individual student problems. These teams are integral to creating and implementing a comprehensive plan for safe and effective schools. A minimum of three people—the principal, a teacher, and a mental health specialist—should serve on both teams. This Action Guide will refer to the first team as the Schoolwide Team, and the second as the Student Support Team.
Although schools may use other titles for their teams, almost every school has them. The Schoolwide Team is sometimes called the School Management Team or School Improvement Team. The Student Support Team may be known as The Child Study Team or the Student Assistance Team.

While the primary functions of these two teams are different, both teams are necessary to create safe, educationally sound learning environments. The teams have different responsibilities, but coordination is necessary. To facilitate this coordination, the teams should have a number of members in common, such as the principal, a teacher, and the school’s mental health professional. A dynamic, collaborative relationship, in which knowledge and information are continuously shared, will help ensure that the schoolwide, early, and intensive interventions are aligned to meet the goals of a safe and effective school.

Safe Schools Have the Capacity to Plan, Implement, Monitor, and Evaluate a Prevention and Intervention Plan Safe schools are strategic and smart. They identify and assess their needs
and strengths, determine their safe school goals and objectives, align their efforts with other school reform and community initiatives, select and implement evidence-based approaches to realize these goals and objectives, coordinate and monitor their implementation, and evaluate the effect of their interventions. These responsibilities require team members who have the appropriate expertise, credibility with relevant stakeholders, access to resources, and authority to act.
Employing Teams Efficiently
Schools are often burdened by too many teams, committees, or workgroups that affect staff time
and result in fragmented efforts. When possible, the Schoolwide Team and the Student Support
Team should be an expansion or refinement of existing teams. Also, these two teams should
coordinate their efforts with all teams addressing similar issues. While this coordination may
increase the workload of some teams at first, it will improve their long-term effectiveness.

Student Support Teams

Principal, Teacher, Mental HealthProfessional, Family, classroom teachers, agency providers, special educators, students, & others School staff, parents, students, community agencies, law
enforcement, & other stakeholders

The Schoolwide Team should have expertise and credibility in the following seven areas:

Prevention, early intervention, and intensive intervention.

School reform.

Community resources.

Family concerns.

Student concerns.

Staff concerns.

Administrative concerns.

Safe Schools Have the Capacity to Identify and to Respond to Individual Needs Safe schools have Student Support Teams to assess the needs of children who exhibit early warning signs. Members of this team should have the professional, cultural, and linguistic competence to identify the students’ needs and strengths. These teams should have expertise in the following
six areas:

Diagnosing mental health problems.

Evaluating academic difficulties.

Conducting a functional assessment of student behavior to determine the “why” behind a behavioral problem or incident.

Consulting with and supporting school staff, students, and families.

Coordinating school and community services.

Collaborating with students and families. To be most effective, the Student Support Team should involve the student and his or her family in its deliberations. If the student is being
considered or is eligible for special education services, requirements for individualized planning under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) must be met. Also, the team is more effective when regular and special educators collaborate. If the student receives services from other community agencies, the team should coordinate with those agencies (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, vocational rehabilitation, and substance abuse).

Building a Schoolwide Foundation

Some students will learn and behave appropriately in almost any school environment. Other students, however, require some level of support to help them realize high academic and behavioral standards. A schoolwide foundation provides all students with the supports and skills they need to become effective learners and problem solvers. In addition, the foundation provides students and staff with the supports and skills they need to develop and foster appropriate behaviors and healthy emotional adjustment. Research at the University of Oregon’s Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior suggests that most schools with effective schoolwide systems that focus on learning and behavior can prevent at least 80 per-
cent of problematic student behaviors. A comprehensive schoolwide foundation should help ensure that a school is safe and responsive to all children. The Early Warning Guide identified
13 characteristics as being essential to such a safe and responsive school. This chapter describes the following four key components of a comprehensive, effective schoolwide plan that can be used to prevent school violence:

Creating a caring school community in which all members feel connected, safe, and supported.

Teaching appropriate behaviors and social problem-solving skills.

Implementing positive behavior support systems.

Providing appropriate academic instruction.

Creating a Caring School Community in Which All Members Feel Connected, Safe, and Supported Safe schools support caring relationships between students and staff. Establishing these relationships reduces the causes of interpersonal conflicts (e.g., prejudice) and allows students to gain a sense of belonging, pride, and attachment to the school. These feelings are an important part of keeping students engaged in the educational process and sensitive to the needs of others with whom they interact in school. Establishing these relationships between students and staff makes it more likely that students can share their safety concerns with staff and enhances the opportunities for adults to coach, mentor, and even discipline students, if
necessary.Creating caring relationships is not easy—particularly in large and diverse schools. Schools can create and nurture caring environments by organizing the environment to support positive relationships (e.g., by creating small learning communities within schools). In addition, schools can develop effective programs to prevent harassment, bullying, and conflict between groups. These programs will be most effective when they align with social skills instruction, the schoolwide discipline system, and the school’s curriculum. There are a variety of evidence-based programs that schools can adopt to improve their schoolwide foundation as well as to develop early and intensive interventions. Activities to build a school community are varied, but in general, successful community building ensures that students associate positive experiences with their interpersonal interactions in the school environment. In other words, students who are accepted, are respected, and experience interpersonal and academic success will feel good about their school experience. Numerous schoolwide activities can be developed to build a strong
sense of community within the school. These activities range from the schoolwide use of an anti-bias curriculum that teaches children tolerance and to deal with prejudice to the fair and equal treatment of all students within the school building. Teaching Appropriate Behaviors and Social Problem-Solving Skills Just as students learn how to read, write, and calculate math equations, they must also learn how to interact appropriately with peers and adults and how to solve interpersonal conflicts nonviolently. A school will have an increased risk of having students who solve problems with violence if the students are not encouraged and taught to interact appropriately and to use problem-solving skills. Thus, safe schools develop interpersonal, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills in all students. Social skills instruction is an effective way to teach appropriate behaviors and problem-solving skills to all students. Social skills can be taught either directly through structured lessons or indirectly by integrating
problem-solving themes into other curricula such as social studies or reading. In either case, social skills and problem-solving activities should become a part of the daily school routine. Numerous social skills programs are available; the school should select a program that fits the culture of the school best. Many successful social skills programs teach students to develop a
problem-solving language that will assist in guiding and monitoring their behavior when they encounter a difficult situation. This language and the corresponding behaviors are taught by providing students with an opportunity to see other people using good social skills successfully, practice these skills themselves, receive feedback from the teacher and others on the use of the skills, and then try them out in real situations.

Developing Social and Emotional Competence and Problem-Solving Skills

Resolving Conflict Creatively Program

The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) is a school-based, primary prevention program that begins in kindergarten and continues through the 12th grade. It is one of the largest and longest-running conflict resolution initiatives in the country that is designed to promote constructive conflict resolution and positive intergroup relations. The specific objectives of the program include making children aware of the different choices they have for dealing with
conflicts; helping children develop skills for making those choices; encouraging children’s respect for their own cultural backgrounds and those of others; teaching children how to identify and stand against prejudice; and making children aware of their role in creating a more peaceful world. These objectives are achieved primarily through a curriculum taught by trained teachers and designed around several core skills, including communicating and listening effectively, expressing feelings and managing anger, resolving conflicts, fostering cooperation, appreciating diversity, and countering bias. The 30- to 60-minute lessons are organized into units based on these core skills and are delivered in a manner that facilitates student-directed discussions and learning. Separate curricula for lower and upper elementary school grades as well as high school enable concepts to be conveyed to children in age-appropriate ways. In addition to the classroom curriculum component, RCCP also incorporates the training of student-based peer mediation groups and administrators. The program aims to create environments in classrooms and across entire schools where opportunities for social-emotional learning are provided along with opportunities for traditional academic learning. Formal evaluation of the impact of RCCP found significant reductions in the frequency of aggressive behaviors and in the types of thinking and cognitive processing leading to aggression (e.g., hostile attributions, aggressive fantasies, and
aggressive problem-solving strategies). When trained teachers employed the curriculum regularly, RCCP was found to benefit all children regardless of grade, gender, and classroom or neighborhood context. Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) is a classroom-based curriculum for kindergarten through fifth-grade students designed to prevent violence, aggression, and other problem behaviors by developing students’ social and emotional competence and problem-solving skills. The objectives of PATHS are met by teaching cognitive problem-solving skills, which improve critical thinking skills, develop effective interpersonal skills, and enhance the classroom climate. The PATHS curriculum, delivered by the classroom teacher, is divided into three separate units: self-control, feelings and relationships, and interpersonal cognitive problemsolving. The cognitive problem-solving skills that students learn in the third unit build upon and expand the skills students developed in the first two units. Students learn to understand, regulate, and express emotions. PATHS teaches students to recognize the feelings of others, to relate the experiences of others to themselves, to develop empathy for others, and to understand how the behaviors of others can affect their own emotions. The techniques used to teach these lessons include group discussion, role-playing, art activities, stories, and educational games. The PATHS curriculum provides students with extensive opportunities to practice their new skills and assistance with
applying the skills in their daily life. A formal evaluation of the PATHS curriculum found significant reductions in students’ hyperactivity, peer aggression, and noncompliance with teacher and staff directions. Specifically, first-grade students receiving PATHS were found to have significantly lower levels of aggression and disruptive behaviors compared with their same-age peers who did not receive the curriculum.

It is important to develop an infrastructure to support the ongoing use of social skills programs. This infrastructure should include at least three main components:

Training all school staff in the instruction and reinforcement of social skills.

Designating school support leaders.

Monitoring and supporting the teaching of social skills.

Staff Training Programs designed to teach children new skills are most beneficial if all staff—including non-teaching staff such as custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers—are involved. When new staff are hired, they also will require training. Training should be conducted by someone who is skilled in in-service training and consultation and who is familiar with social
skills programs. Staff must be comfortable with and committed to teaching problem-solving skills, encouraging and reinforcing their use, and holding students responsible for using these skills. Most programs that are designed to teach students problem-solving skills are adaptable to the needs of teachers. Acquiring good teaching skills may be more difficult for non-teaching staff and, therefore, these individuals should receive adequate initial training and responsive follow-up support. Staff Support and Coordination The degree to which a new program is implemented successfully depends largely upon the support provided to those implementing the program. Someone in the school should have the skills, time, and authority to assist staff in their initial and ongoing efforts to teach and help students to use appropriate social problem-solving skills. In addition, because students may have several teachers, some coordination is necessary to ensure that teachers are consistently teaching these skills, and that all staff members are modeling and reinforcing the students’ use of these skills. Monitoring the Program Support leaders should check frequently with teachers to ensure that skills are being taught consistently. Over time it will be important for the school to determine whether the program is working. Most teachers will be able to tell quickly whether students are using the social skills in class. It is important, however, to observe whether these skills are also being used outside of class and school. Community agency staff and families can often provide this information.

Positive Behavior Support Systems

Safe schools provide a social and physical environment that fosters appropriate behavior. The social environment includes the norms, rules and their enforcement, and any support necessary to enable students and adults to behave appropriately. The physical environment includes the
way in which the building and the school’s routines are managed to prevent problems (e.g., supervision during class changes). Establishing Schoolwide Systems to Manage and Support Behavior Effective discipline systems must be simple, schoolwide, proactive, and positive. Simplicity is important so that all members of the school administrators, teachers, staff, students, and their families—understand the rules and what happens when people violate the rules. These rules should be schoolwide so that expectations and behavioral supports for students are consistent throughout the school. The behavioral management systems should be proactive and positive, as research demonstrates that proactive approaches (e.g., intervening before a verbal dispute escalates into a physical fight) and positive support (teaching expected behaviors) are more effective than reactive approaches that emphasize punishment. A critical component of a safe school environment is the establishment of clear guidelines for student behavior. Such guidelines should enable students to understand what behaviors adhere to or violate the school’s expectations. Early in the school year, the Schoolwide Team, with input
from the entire school community, should meet to establish behavior guidelines. Ideally, these basic rules of behavior should be as follows:

Stated simply and positively (e.g., “Walk” instead of “Do not run”).

Few in number so they can be memorized.

Reinforced, modeled, and enforced by the adults in the school.

Consistent with the social skills that all school staff are teaching and reinforcing. After establishing schoolwide behavioral expectations, the team should determine incentives for appropriate behavior and consequences for inappropriate behavior. These actions should be agreeable to all or most members of the school and be easy to use. An effective schoolwide man-
agement system is one in which all students know and can explain the school’s expectations for behavior, as well as the incentives and consequences associated with adhering to or violating the expectations.Despite ongoing and structured encouragement of appropriate behavior, some students may commit minor infractions or exhibit major disruptive behaviors. Caring schools use positive disciplinary measures to address these instances. Positive discipline has, at a minimum, the following three important characteristics:

An explanation of why the behavior is a problem.

An explanation of which rule was violated.

The provision of opportunities to learn appropriate behaviors and to correct mistakes.
Students need to understand that not all inappropriate behavior is the same and that different consequences are associated with different levels of inappropriate behavior. Safe schools should build their capacity to deal with multiple violations of the rules by developing multiple levels of
consequences. These levels should be systematically followed and never short-circuited. That is, steps on the consequences ladder should not be skipped to expedite a child’s removal from the school building. The exception is any major violation of school rules that endangers the life of
the child or the lives of others. It is also critical that parents understand the school conduct codes and the consequences for violations. The consistent use of incentives and consequences is critical to successful management of behavior at the school level. When staff fail to adopt and
implement agreed-upon procedures to encourage student use of positive behaviors, students learn that sometimes it is okay not to solve problems this way. As a result, their use of problem-solving strategies will be erratic at best. Consistency does not just happen. It is usually due to school-level strategic planning, team building, professional development,
and ongoing discussion and evaluation. Consistency is further strengthened when a school’s positive behavioral strategies and discipline system extend to families, support agencies, and other community groups. The important components of schoolwide management strategies also
apply at the classroom level. Expectations for behavior, the use of incentives and consequences, and the consistency with which they are implemented are just as important in the classroom as anywhere else in the school building. Students should understand classroom rules, have the
skills to demonstrate behaviors that will allow them to meet the rules, and understand the incentives and consequences for appropriate and inappropriate behavior. In general, classrooms that are well managed are characterized by the following conditions:

Classroom routines are well-established and understood by all.

Teachers spend a great majority of time on academic instruction and only a minimal amount of time is required to redirect disruptive behavior.

Teacher feedback to students regarding their behavior is overwhelmingly positive.

Mechanisms are in place for students to cool off and generate solutions to problems.