BY SIERRA MARTIN
The Texas School Safety Center, or TxSSC, at Texas State University has been awarded a $1.5 mil- lion grant in support of school behavioral threat assessment programs. The grant will assist the cen- ter in developing an evidence-based approach for identifying individuals who may pose a threat and provide proactive interventions when necessary. The three-year grant will fund a program called “Operationalizing School Behavioral Threat Assess- ment: Enhancing a Statewide Violence Prevention Model through Target Technical Assistance.” The speci cs “In an e ort to strengthen statewide delity of implementation, sustainment and enhancement of the school behavioral threat assessment pro- cess, the TxSSC saw a need to work directly with district teams to assist with taking the theoretical knowledge gained in the training and put it into practice at the school level,” TxSSC Director Kathy Martinez-Prather said. According to a news release, the project will expand technical assistance sessions on threat assessment, and prioritize rural districts and dis- tricts with a functioning school behavioral threat assessment team for less than three years. Texas public school districts have been required to establish a trained multidisciplinary school behavioral threat assessment team to serve each campus since 2019 due to the Texas Education Code. $1.5M to fund behavioral threat programs
The Texas School Safety Center is a research center at Texas State tasked in Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code with key school safety initiatives and mandates, as being taught to this class of educators, according to the university.
COURTESY TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Funding safety research The Texas School Safety Center manages over $22M in designated research funding from federal and state agencies.
Diving in deeper “The goal of a threat assessment is to identify students of concern, assess their risk for engag- ing in violence or other harmful activities, and identify intervention strategies to manage that risk,” according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Threat Assessment Center. The TxSSC provides state-mandated training and resources to help districts implement the school behavioral threat assessment process. During the sessions, district teams meet with a specialist who provides customized guidance and resources to the unique needs of each district.
Texas legislature: $10.99M National Institute of Justice: $4.54M U.S. Department of Justice: $2.88M Texas Health and Human Services: $2.19M Texas Department of State Health Services: $1.57M
$22.17M Total
SOURCE: TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY IMPACT
BUILDING BRIGHTER FUTURES since 1973
austincc.edu
Sterling R.
15
SAN MARCOS BUDA KYLE EDITION
Powered by FlippingBook