SECTION III – REDUCING VIOLENCE-RELATED STRESS IN SCHOOLS

These interventions are designed to reduce isolation by creating connections and enhancing relationships among school staff. Allocating time and otherwise providing administrative support for school staff to connect with one another is deemed to be key for the success of these interventions. National Board Certification for master teachers can serve as a vehicle for supporting mentoring relationships; some states even provide financial incentives by covering the cost of certification. Models for mentoring programs are abundant. The provision of adequate time, space and other resources for teaching teams to work together and to support each other is essential for teams to thrive.

Site-based management and local restructuring can provide teachers and other school staff with opportunities to participate in important decision-making. For example, administrators can involve teachers in efforts to recruit and interview candidates for staff positions, allowing them to directly contribute and share in the responsibility for hiring decisions. Involving staff in decisions that relate to student behavior is an important dimension of empowering school staff, particularly in relation to violence-related stress. Staff participation in the development and implementation of discipline policies and outcomes directly addresses both the isolation and powerlessness aspects of violence-related stress.

As rewards, in and of themselves, recognition and acknowledgment for good performance can increase motivation and reduce stress.

Promoting cooperation—rather than competition—directly addresses isolation. Concrete incentives that reward group performance introduce a shared goal towards which staff can work together.

Community involvement in schools can reduce staff isolation. By reinforcing the notion that schools are vital and essential contributors to the community, this type of involvement can help to reduce the risk of burnout among staff. Increasing the presence of community members in the schools can enhance community understanding of the environment in which teachers and other school staff work. It can reinforce community recognition of the important contributions made by schools and increase the prestige of school staff within the community. Community involvement can also yield greater opportunities for schools and communities to identify common goals and priorities.

Providing access to community resources for professional development for school staff addresses both powerlessness and isolation. When linked and responsive to identified needs for curriculum assessment and classroom management, community resource banks can make schools more responsive to the communities they serve and enable communities to be more responsive and supportive of schools.

The Federal government’s Safe Schools/Health Students Initiative highlights the importance of effective community involvement in schools. Drawing from best practices in mental health, social service, education and justice, this initiative seeks to promote a comprehensive, integrated framework that communities can use to address school violence.

School-community partnerships are also highlighted as an essential ingredient in SAMHSA’s School and Community Action Grants. Step one for each of the 40 grantees awarded in 1999-2000 was to build consensus among school-community stakeholders. Once consensus has been established as a foundation, grantees pilot evidence-based programs and practices to promote healthy development and prevent youth violence.

The accumulated expertise of experienced educators offers a valuable resource for pre-service training. Partnerships between K-12 schools and post-secondary schools of education would provide a mechanism for integrating experienced classroom teachers, administrators and other experienced professional school staff into standard pre-service post-secondary training curricula. Bringing seasoned teachers and administrators into post-secondary classrooms would greatly enrich the reality base for pre-service instruction.

Developing skills and generating confidence in the use of newly acquired skills requires practice. Particularly in relation to identifying, understanding, and addressing student behavior, experiential learning and classroom simulation would provide opportunities for staff to practice the skills they will need to rely on when they face actual situations with students.

Designate mentor teachers to train faculty members. Invite pupil services personnel (e.g., school nurses, school psychologists, school counselors, school social workers, occupational therapists, and others) for in-service training across professional disciplines represented among school staff.

By building formal relationships with community-based professionals and organizations, school staff can gain access to valuable expertise for staff development and ongoing consultation. Potential community-based resources include health centers, mental health centers, social service agencies, private social service organizations, youth advocacy organizations, hospital-sponsored programs, recreation centers, and faith/religious-sponsored programs.

Providing adequate opportunities for staff development, including sufficient time for school staff to participate in training and consultation activities, is key for making the best use of community- and school-based resources. Time set aside for these activities should take into account the schedules and workloads of teachers and other school staff so as not to create more stress.

Meaningful parental involvement can make a pragmatically important contribution to school staff professional development. The advisory group recommended that schools invest in strengthening parental involvement by creating and maintaining formal mechanisms and programs for parents to volunteer their time in schools. One aspect of this would be for schools to provide training for parents to serve as volunteer classroom monitors. With some training, parents could feel better prepared and more competent to take on the roles assigned to them at school, thereby enhancing their ability to contribute in a meaningful way. Trained parent volunteers could make an essential contribution to staff professional development by helping to make more staff time available for training, consultation and other professional development activities.

Expectations for student behavior best serve the school when the process for developing them involves school-wide and community-wide input. Such input and consensus building allow for greater feelings of ownership and support. Community involvement in this process also addresses the isolation aspect of stress.

These expectations might include explicit guidelines to promote certain positive behaviors (e.g., service to others, good citizenship) and prohibit others that often precede actual violence (e.g., name-calling, bullying). Establishing school norms for behavior can be an effective form of violence prevention.

In order for them to be meaningful, expectations for student behavior in the school need to be translated into concrete, real-life terms. This should include clear, concrete definitions of the roles and responsibilities of school staff and every other member of the school community.

Feeling ineffective is bound to cause stress. Conflicts over discipline among staff, administration, and others in the school can generate significant stress for everyone involved. In order to enhance effectiveness in upholding school expectations for student behavior, staff need know that they have the support of their colleagues and school leaders. If school expectations have been developed with community-input, the potential for parents to undermine the authority of a teacher or other school staff can be minimized. Stress can be reduced and confidence can be increased when staff know that, when they act in a way that is expected of them, they can count on being backed up and supported. The goal of this recommendation is to assure that every member of the school community can say, “I am clear about what is expected of me. I am confident that when I take an action that is consistent with these expectations, my school community will back me up.”

Best practices could include making use of school management techniques, such as the use of block scheduling. Block scheduling reduces the amount of student traffic in the hallways. Reducing crowding contributes to violence prevention in schools which, therefore, contributes to preventing violence-related stress for staff who may be required to monitor hallways. Once in place, the overall management strategy chosen by the school must be sustained. A continuous improvement model (e.g., assess, design, implement, assess, re-design, etc.) should be applied to allow for adjustments as needed. A mechanism for evaluation, particularly for gathering and incorporating feedback, would be important to include.

Drawing from prevention research, some schools are focusing their interventions on behaviors and situations that often are pre-cursors to violent behavior. Evidence-based violence prevention programs and practices include:

Some research suggests that school staff should focus on relationship building, with an overall goal of developing positive connections with students, rather than focusing on rules, discipline, and consequences. Training to help staff become more effective listeners, such as using reflective listening skills, could support and enhance teacher-student relationships. In addition, cultural competency programs that foster respect, understanding and acceptance of others make an important contribution.

Planning, preparation and adherence to a procedure for ensuring that regular, accurate communication will be maintained whenever a crisis does occur reduces speculation and fear among staff, students and parents. It is important for school officials to inform staff of events when they occur and to inform them about outcomes, including how incidents get resolved.

This recommendation also addresses the first critical stressor that can contribute to violence-related stress, feeling isolated and/or powerless. Communication of accurate information decreases the influence of rumors that often develop after an incident. Open lines of communication with parents and other community members can set the stage for collaboration and avoid a tense, and possibly even litigious, climate. So, it is especially important for administrators to ensure that regular communication occurs with the community, including open communication about how incidents have been or will be resolved.

It reassures school personnel to know ahead of time what to do in the event that a crisis does occur. Having school safety and crisis response plans and procedures in place for every level – classroom, building, district and community – makes a significant contribution to reducing violence-related stress. [See NEA Crisis Communications Guide and Toolkit, Vol. 1, Being Prepared – Before a Crisis, page 1.6 – “Checklist – How Does Your School or District Crisis Response Plan Measure Up?”]

Particularly for violence prevention and crisis response work, schools should not function in isolation from the community. School partnerships with community-based agencies are essential for planning and implementing effective crisis response. These partnerships provide access to expertise and resources that schools generally do not have (e.g., emergency fire and rescue) or may have (e.g., mental health services), but not in sufficient quantities. High caseloads for pupil services personnel may not allow for them to take on an active, primary role in school safety and crisis response.

Violence that occurs outside of school can also have an impact inside the school. Communication and collaboration with mental health, social service, and law enforcement agencies can assist schools in violence prevention efforts and can help school officials and school staff to be better prepared for dealing with violence when it does occur at school.

Because schools are unique environments in which to work, community-based professionals may need time and guidance to get oriented to school culture. Community-based professionals may not be familiar with procedures, protocols, and various laws and regulations that influence the way schools operate and function. Although community-based professionals may have much to offer in terms of expertise or experience, a lack of familiarity with or understanding of the school setting can undermine even the most well-intentioned efforts. Community-based personnel need orientation, training, and informal mentoring and support for their work in schools.