Dealing with threatening behaviour & threats in schools : a solution focused approach / prepared by Graham Rule.

Cover title.

Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this information guide is to help school communities, regional staff and student support staff assist schools in responding to unexpected and possibly traumatic threatening behaviour within schools. Preventing threatening behaviour and violence is an important priority for schools and the community as a whole. Unfortunately there is no simple formula or particular profile of risk factors that accurately determines the next threat or violent student. A more viable approach to dealing with threatening behaviour is that of threat inquiry, which uses a set of pathways to determine the credibility and seriousness of a threat and the likelihood that it will be carried out. The model proposed in this manual is designed to be used by educational professionals, mental health professionals and police. It appears to be an assumption of the author that all threats of violence come from students. We must continue to search for those fundamental behavioural and environmental signposts which suggest that a threat of violence in any school may be real. The author is a psychologist with the Emergency and Security Management Unit of the Dept. of Education & Training.