15-Minute Focus: Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management for K-12 Schools: Brief Counseling Techniques That Work

In 15-Minute Focus: Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management for K-12 Schools, Dr. Melissa A. Louvar Reeves explains the interrelated factors that play a role in a person's decision to plan and carry out an act of violence.

Every year, stories about violence in schools make headlines around the world. And every year, questions surface: How could this have been prevented? What were the warning signs? What changes do we need to make in our schools and communities to prevent this from happening yet again?

This book will help answer those questions, as you learn about the factors that affect decision-making, and the role of Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) in managing students' troubling behaviors, mitigating risk for the school and community, and directing students onto more positive pathways.

In this book, you'll discover:

• Why schools should establish BTAM teams and protocols
• How to establish a BTAM team
• Identifying and reporting concerns
• Establishing protocols for evaluating threats
• How teachers, administrators, counselors and the community can work together to mitigate troubling behavior and ensure student success
• Ways to assist struggling students as they transition to adult life after high school

Educators, administrators, and school counselors have been trained on how to respond to a student who is suicidal or despondent. This book helps translate those skills to assist someone who is thinking about harming others.

About author(s):

Dr. Melissa Louvar Reeves, Ph.D., NCSP, LCMHC is an Associate Professor at Winthrop University. She is the Past-President of the National Association of School Psychologists (2016-17), a nationally certified school psychologist, licensed clinical mental health counselor, and licensed special education teacher. She has over 19-years' experience working in public schools, a private school, and day and residential treatment programs. Dr. Reeves is a coauthor of the PREPaRE Crisis Prevention and Intervention curriculum and travels both nationally and internationally training professionals in crisis prevention and intervention, threat and suicide assessment, trauma and PTSD, and cognitive-behavioral interventions. She is a senior consultant with Sigma Threat Management Associates and also an advisor for Safe and Sound Schools, an organization founded by two parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook tragedy. She has co-authored multiple books and publications focusing on school safety and trauma.