A safe school is one that promotes student mental health, fosters a positive social climate among students and staff, and is a place where psychological and physical violence and aggressive behavior is absent (or very limited). Yet, youth violence, victimization, and bullying are pervasive in schools and are detrimental for learning and healthy development. Creating positive school environments and preventing school violence is vital for learning, healthy development, and emotional, physical, and social well-being [2]. Researchers have found that physical and psychological safety in school is linked to better academic outcomes and student well-being [3], [4], [5]. Despite a robust empirical literature indicating positive outcomes associated with school safety, the field of school safety lacks a unifying conceptual framework to guide research, practice, and policy [1]. A conceptual model of school safety that considers the pathways through which contextual factors may provide the ecosystem necessary for developing school policies and programmatic activities that can help create safe psychological and physical environments for students to learn and thrive is lacking. We present a comprehensive model of school safety intended to represent the multiple factors and pathways that contribute to school safety and ultimately, positive youth development (see Figure 1). The model wasdeveloped from empirical evidence and our own practice experience from providing technical assistance to schools across the United States. This modelencompasses multiple disciplines (e.g., education, mental health, law enforcement, public health) considers multiple strategies (e.g., deterrence, early detection, primary prevention) and provides an ecological approach (e.g., schools, family, community) to understand and promote school safety. Our model is intended to be a conceptual tool to help practitioners and school and community leaders to consider multiple approaches to achieve the goal of school safety and ultimately positive youth development, and to emphasize how one single approach may not be enough to achieve these goals. We apply this model to provide technical assistance (TA) to schools using our unique approach that is tailored to school and community contexts, data-driven, focused on implementing evidence-based violence prevention practices, and adapted to support site-specific readiness. Our model and TA approach are intended to reduce the research-practice gap by mapping how various strategies operate to influence school safety and help practitioners, researchers, and policy makers make informed consensus driven decisions related to reducing school violence, establishing supportive educational environments, and contributing to positive youth development. We close with a description of how the model is put into action through our TA approach.

Authors: Sarah M. Stilwell, Justin Heinze, Hsing-Fang Hsieh, Emily Torres, Alison Grodzinski, Marc Zimmerman

Published in: Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2024)

• Date of Conference: 2-4 April, 2024
• DOI: 10.20533/IICE.2024.0025
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-70-9
• Conference Location: Dún Laoghaire, Ireland