Secret Service Presents Seminar On Preventing Targeted Violence In Schools

STORRS — The United States Secret Service, New Haven Resident Office and National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) will present a seminar on the Safe School Initiative on Tuesday, June 29, from 9 am to 3:30 pm at Central Connecticut State University’s Torp Theatre, in Lawrence J. Davidson Hall, in New Britain.

Co-hosts of the seminar include the College of Continuing Studies at the University of Connecticut, Connecticut Department of Education, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the Connecticut Association of Schools, the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association and the Police Officer Standards and Training Council.

Targeted to middle and high school principals, chiefs of police, elected officials and law enforcement officials, the seminar is hosted by the Homeland Security Education Center, an educational collaboration between the Department of Public Safety’s Division of Homeland Security and the College of Continuing Studies at the University of Connecticut.

The Safe School Initiative, conducted by the Secret Service and the US Department of Education, examined school shootings and other school-based attacks. Based on the study’s findings, the agencies have developed a guide for schools and regularly train school and law enforcement professionals on school threat assessments — how to identify, assess, and manage individuals who might pose a risk of school violence.

The seminar, which is being presented on an invitational only basis, was developed in response to the increased concern about safeguarding America’s schools and school children from acts of targeted violence committed by students. Attendees will learn to develop and implement strategies to earlier identify, assess, and manage those that may pose a risk of targeted violence in schools.

The Safe School Initiative has gathered and analyzed relevant information regarding the behavior and thinking of students who have planned and executed instances of violence in American schools over the past several years. The NTAC will present case studies of school shooters, discuss the study’s findings, and examine the concept of threat assessment as an approach to evaluating the risk of targeted violence in schools. The seminar will cover the concepts of targeted violence and explore the findings from a study of preincident thinking and behaviors of school shooters in the US in the past 25 years.

To access the guide and the final report, visit www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml.