Recommendations for Schools
• Revise zero-tolerance policies and the effects of suspensions and expulsions as they are ineffective and harmful practices. Rely instead on a well-trained multidisciplinary threat/risk assessment and management team.
• Avoid measures that create a correctional facility-like atmosphere such as bulletproof glass, armed security guards and metal detectors. More commonsense measures such as limited entry points into the school can be just as effective and cost little to implement.
• Refrain from high-stress security drills (for example, those in which students are not informed they are participating in a drill), which can themselves be traumatizing.
• Encourage an emotionally connected safe-school climate where each student can feel comfortable coming forward to a responsible adult with matters of concern.
• Emphasize and train staff in interpersonally based and emotionally supportive prevention measures that include the impact of trauma and indications for referral for mental health treatment, such as Child and Youth Mental Health First Aid, bereavement support and academic accommodations.
• Implement universal social-emotional learning and add mental health to the school health curriculum.
