 |
SAVE Legislation
Model
The New York State Legislature addressed the concepts of
violence prevention in the SAVE legislation. There are three
critical domains that form the core of violence prevention
efforts: education, legal/regulatory, and environmental
domains. The SAVE legislation requires that all of these
domains are integrated into the school's comprehensive safety
plan (NYSCSS, 2001).
Educational Domain
Education covers the areas of information dissemination and
skill teaching and development. Through SAVE, the education
domain is addressed through training of school personnel in
violence prevention and the training of students in character
education and development of non-violent communication skills.
New York State health mandates utilize research based educational
strategies in the curricula that teach specific skills to
students in:
- Anger management;
- Empathy and perspective taking;
- Social problem solving;
- Communication;
- Peace building.
The skills that students learn through the health mandates
help them with specific violence prevention strategies such
as:
- Mentoring (this requires skill in communication, self-management
and advocacy);
- Social skills (requires communication, advocacy and social
problem solving skills);
- Conflict resolution (requires communication, decision
making, planning, self-management, social problem solving
and advocacy skills);
- Peer mediation (requires communication, decision making,
planning, self-management, problem solving and advocacy
skills);
- Parent involvement (requires communication, planning
and goal setting skills).
Additionally, education is aimed at teachers and school staff
in order to identify and intervene in potentially violent
situations. Staff must be aware of warning signs of escalating
behaviors and know what are the procedures for intervention.
Some warning signs, which may be signs of imminent crisis
include (NYSCSS, 2001):
- The verbalization of lethal violence;
- Presentation of a detailed plan (which would include,
time, place and method) to harm self or others;
- Exhibiting self-injurious behavior;
- Displaying severe rage;
- Engaging in serious physical fighting with peers or others;
- Severe destruction of property.
Interventions in imminent crisis include:
- Take threats seriously; don't dismiss threats as idle
talk;
- Talk with the student, if possible. Ask open ended questions
in effort to keep the person talking.
- Do not leave the youth alone, but make sure to keep a
safe distance, utilizing environmental barriers as needed,
depending on the student's behavior.
- Avoid exhibiting aggressive body movements; avoid the
projection of authority.
- Utilize mental health professionals if the student is
unwilling to talk or is continuing to express violent or
dangerous thoughts or behavior.
- Alert school administration, school psychologist/counselor,
parents/guardians, mental health professionals or police
as needed.
- Whenever possible, attempt to verbally diffuse the situation
until help arrives.
Legal/Regulatory Domain
Legal/regulatory includes Codes of Conduct, rules, policies
and procedures, laws and disciplinary codes. Under SAVE the
legal/regulatory domain is extensive, for example:
- Required Codes of Conduct;
- Detailed procedures for pupil removal and suspension;
and
- Coordination of efforts between the juvenile justice
system and the school.
Additional items related to this domain will be covered in
more detail in the next section of this course.
Environmental Domain
The environmental domain encompasses the physical and social
environment. The physical and environmental domains are addressed
under the SAVE law by examining the school environment and
physical plant for safety and security and continual refinement
of the school's safety plans.
- The physical environment includes lighting, landscaping,
width of hallways, doorways and other modifications to the
actual physical plant. The focus is on safety.
- The social environment includes activities such
the social climate of the school, after school programs
and day care.
The environmental domain also includes recognition of the
emotional climate of the school in the event of a critical
incident involving violence. The aftermath of such an incident
impacts students and staff and can have long term consequences
for all involved. Imperative to all is the recreation of security,
both physical and emotional for children and staff who witnessed
or who heard about a violent incident. Counseling and mental
health services should be offered to students and staff who
have been impacted. Such interventions can mitigate consequences
of violence such as acute traumatic stress disorder, post-traumatic
stress disorder and other emotional or behavioral reactions
to a critical incident. It is important to remember that anniversary
dates of such incidents may also invoke a significant emotional
or behavior response.
Continue on to
|
|
