This Week in School and Campus Safety

Good afternoon,

This Weekly Update by the Illinois School and Campus Safety Program provides information on the Handle With Care program, highlights a resource on improving school natural hazard safety, and promotes the upcoming classes on Preventing Targeted Violence Through Leakage and Cyber Investigations, Developing Emergency Operations Plans, Advanced Digital Threat Assessment, and Campus Threat Assessment & Management.

Thank you for your interest in school and campus safety. However, if you wish to no longer receive our emails, let me know and I will remove you from our contacts list.

Respectfully,

Laura Black
le-black@wiu.edu
Program Coordinator
Illinois School and Campus Safety Program
Understanding & Implementing Handle With Care

When told something needs to be handled with care, the assumption is the item is fragile, delicate, or precious. When students experience violence or trauma, they most definitely can be in a fragile state and may need to be handled delicately. The Handle With Care program strives to create an environment conducive to doing exactly that. Through an established Handle With Care program, appropriate school personnel are notified when a student has experienced a traumatic event. They are then able to inform student’s teachers that the student needs to be handled with care. Since trauma can manifest in a variety of ways, the educators can then understand why the student may be acting out or performing uncharacteristically, and know that the student may need to be met with understanding and patience, including having resources provide to them, instead of simply receiving punitive measures. 

Samantha Kanish of Safe2Help Illinois noted, “In a national study on child health, researchers estimated 40 percent of children in Illinois between the ages of 0-17 have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, such as child abuse/neglect and exposure to domestic violence. Members of the School Safety Working Group are working on recommendations to address this need, one of which is Handle With Care.”

In short, in setting up a Handle With Care program, a school district would establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the area law enforcement agencies where, if any of the agencies respond to the scene of a traumatic event where a student from that district is present, the agency sends an email to a predetermined email address within the school district with the message, “Handle ‘student name, age, school’ with care.” The message is then forwarded to the appropriate individuals at the student’s school. The message does not specify what occurred, just that something has happened that may impact the student negatively. 

According to Marti Neahring, Executive Director of Student and Family Services at West Aurora School District 129, her district “implemented Handle With Care in February 2020, just before the initial COVID-19 shutdown. Even though we already have an excellent relationship with our police departments, this provided another opportunity for us to communicate and bring awareness to the trauma and social emotional needs our students experience.” District 129 worked with their five police departments and created MOUs with them. When one of those law enforcement agencies responds to a call where an incident requires a Handle With Care notification, the agency sends an email to a specific email address for the school district’s safety department. Neahring explained that, “Because our district’s boundaries overlap with other large school districts in the area, the notification is not 100%, but every single communication has provided us the opportunity to ‘handle that specific student with care’ and keep a watchful eye for signs associated with experiencing a traumatic event.”  

The Safe2Help Illinois website features a section on Handle With Care, which includes model forms, a process flow chart, and more.
Resource Highlight:
Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety

Last week we discussed emergency operations plans in regards to creating an annex for hazardous materials spills/leaks. This week, with the recent severe weather in the region, we are sharing a resource that builds upon the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans; that resource is FEMA's Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety. The guide identifies natural hazards that could impact schools; discusses making schools safer and more damage resistant; presents information on planning, preparing for, and recovering from a natural disaster, and discusses engaging the whole community.
There's Still Time To Register!
Developing Emergency Operations Plans K-12 Train-the-Trainer April 21st in Edwardsville

There's still time to register for the Developing Emergency Operations Plans K-12 101 Train-the-Trainer class being held in Edwardsville, Il on April 21st. This class presents Federal guidance on school emergency management planning, including the recommended six step planning process to create a high-quality school EOP. This planning process is designed to help develop a plan, conduct a comprehensive review of the entire plan, or conduct periodic & incremental reviews of plan components.
 
For more information and to register, click here.
There's Still Time to Register!
Advanced Digital Threat Assessment via Zoom
on April 19th

There's still time to register for the Advanced Digital Threat Assessment class on April 19th from 9:30 am-4:00 pm via Zoom. Building upon the Digital Threat Assessment class by Safer Schools Together, Advanced Digital Threat Assessment advances participants' understanding of finding and curating relevant digital information consistent with real-life digital threat assessment data gathering scenarios. Significant engagement and hands-on practice will take place as participants are assembled into investigative teams and given a true-to-life mock scenario. For more information and to register, click here.


Upcoming Session of Preventing Targeted Violence Through Leakage and Cyber Investigations
April 26-27th in Macomb

The Illinois School and Campus Safety Program is pleased to announce the class Preventing Targeted Violence Through Leakage and Cyber Investigations will be held April 26-27th in Macomb, IL. Class objectives include:

• Why it is important NOT to disregard information given to LEO or school officials.
• What the term "Leakage" means and how we can interpret the information.
• Learn free and open source online investigative tools into social networks and App generated phone numbers.
• Learn to identify and collect cyber evidence to identify suspects.
• Learn the three-step process in investigating internet crimes.
• Learn the importance of Preservation, Exigent Circumstances, and Search Warrants.
• Learn how to obtain IP's, screen names, screen captures, and email headers.
• State laws: Terrorist Threat, Falsely Making a Terrorist Threat, Swatting, and Causing a Catastrophe.
• Suspect search warrant, arrest, interrogation, and mental health evaluation.
• Examine a successful cyber-crime case study investigation from start to finish.
 
For more information and to register, click here.
Upcoming Session of Campus Threat Assessment and Management
May 31st-June 1st in Charleston

The Illinois School and Campus Safety Program is pleased to announce the class Campus Threat Assessment and Management will be held May 31st-June 1st, 2023, in Charleston, IL. This two-day workshop for institutions of higher education featuring Gene Deisinger, Ph.D will help participants to better understand the dynamics of targeted violence and to develop and enhance strategies for early identification, assessment, and intervention with concerning situations. For more information and to register, click here
Illinois School and Campus Safety Program www.ilschoolsafety.org
schoolsafety@iletsbei.com