School Violence Threat Risk Assessment

The School Violence Threat Risk Assessment website provides the following resources for reducing the risk of school violence.

The purpose of this web site is to provide clinically based school personnel with professional methodology to reduce school violence by examining threats to help keep them from becoming acts of violence. Topics addressed include structuring the threat assessment process to reduce school violence. The information discussed on this site reflects that state of the art in professional threat risk assessment in middle and high schools.

The Threat Assessment Process
People seldom decide on the spur of the moment to solve a problem with violence. Rather, an act of violence is progressive with warning signs along the way; a threat of violence is one such observable behavior. Threats of violence against oneself or others indicate the approaching or progress toward a state of crisis.

Threat Risk Assessment
Threats may be direct or indirect, specific and detailed or general, well thought out or impulsive and/or veiled, conditional, or implied. All express intent to harm. Threats may be classified as low, medium, or high depending on the nature of the threat, predisposing and precipitating characteristics, and the psychosocial functioning of the student who made the threat.

Psychosocial Evaluation
Aggression. Depression. Alienation. Egocentricism. Coping with stress. Situations at home and school. A thorough threat assessment should include a study of these dynamic psychosocial characteristics as they serve as either protective or risk factors in most incidents of school violence, and as such tend to elevate the level of risk associated with these types of threats.

PETRA Response & Intervention
Effective administrative response to mitigate school violence must balance the need for appropriate discipline and the implementation of individualized interventions addressing the underlying issues that lead to the threat.