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RESOURCES - Articles
Teen Violence Fact Sheet
Here are some guidelines to help
schools identify and respond to adolescents at risk of harming
others. They comprise a checklist of behavioral characteristics
that can help identify adolescents who may be at risk of
physically harming their fellow students or their teachers
and a corresponding strategy that a school might consider
implementing.
In trying to discern a pattern of behavior that may be seen
in a youth at risk of committing a violent act, looks for
students who are:
- Constantly angry and frequently
feel persecuted
- Are socially isolated with few or no
friends
- Feel despair and a sense of hopelessness about life
- Are
emotionally impatient and tends to respond aggressively
without thinking
- Angrily threaten to harm others
- Are fascinated with guns,
knives, bombs and bring weapon to school
- Write or talk regularly
about violence and death
- Are chronically absent from school
- Repeatedly disregard
the feelings of others
- Are defiant of authority and rules
- Express extreme mood
swings without an obvious corresponding reason
- Possess and
abuse drugs or alcohol
Unless a student is behaving aggressively
or violently, the first response should be to arrange
a private and supportive
counseling session to listen to the student’s perspective
and discuss their lives.
The following is a list of suggested actions to address
the problem:
- Establish school policies and
procedures for preventing violence and intervening when
it does occur. The team responsible
for drafting these guidelines should involve teachers,
counselors, administrators, school safety personnel, students,
local
police, parents and representatives from neighborhood-based
programs. The rules and consequences of violating them
should be clearly posted.
- Establish a system to identify troubled youth, refer them
for psychological assessments and, if needed, appropriate
follow-up services, and monitor their progress.
- Identify adult resource people in the schools to whom students
can speak about their fears or concerns regarding their
own safety, anger or sadness. Develop procedures to follow
up on such revelations. Make sure everyone knows about
these resource people.
- Establish a peer-training program
in which youth can serve as mediators or “listeners” for
other students. These peer mediators also should be trained
in
identifying
problems that require referral to a professional. Peer
support groups facilitated by an adult with topics selected
by the students can also be useful.
- Educate all staff about the violence/drug prevention, social
competency training, and behavior health programs offered
by the school including the purpose, eligibility criteria
and referral procedures. Programs should be evaluated
for effectiveness and comprehensiveness, including feedback
from students about how these programs could be improved.
- Create and update a directory of neighborhood resources
and programs.
- Engage parents in addressing teen violence concerns, provide
them with resources and conduct regularly scheduled meetings
in which parents can discuss school safety issues. Opportunities
for parents to meet privately to discuss concerns about
the safety of their children should also be available.
- Two points should be kept in mind regarding these guidelines.
First, the guidelines for identifying potentially aggressive
or violent youth are designed to help students, not to
punish or stigmatize them. Second, the guidelines for
responding to potential or actual violence need to be adapted to each
school's particular situation. School-based teams are
encouraged to develop new and additional responses.
Foundations Behavioral Health
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