Do you know the differences between School Security and Student Safety?
Posted In Campus Safety, Risk Management, School Safety on May 15th, 2013 Tags: Prevention, School Security, student safety
Unfortunately, many people do not know the differences between security and safety because so many security solutions have been misrepresented or misunderstood.
For over 30 years, I have had the privilege to assist hundreds and hundreds of organizations with multiple Security related technologies, services, vendors and solutions. For the most part, Security related efforts are understood by most people because Security efforts are focused primarily at REACTING to a risk or threat at your front door and/or REACTING to an incident or tragedy in progress. For example, Security related efforts include doors / locks (to keep people/threats out), cameras (to record threats at your door and provide evidence after the incident or tragedy), security alarms and security sensors (to let you know a threat is onsite), visitor management systems (to screen threats at your front door), security and panic rooms, panic buttons, mass notification systems, armed guards, armed staff and many other Security efforts are focused at REACTING to some risk, threat, person or evil monster at your front door.
Safety is different, MUCH DIFFERENT. Safety is PREVENTING incidents and concerning behaviors from escalating into more serious events and tragedies and PREVENTING risks and threats from getting to your front door.
For schools and colleges (and organizations too), creating and maintaining a safer learning and working environment is more about PREVENTING incidents and making sure students and staff do not come face to face with risks, threats and evil at their front door instead of REACTING to risks, threats and evil.
And here is the really good news… PREVENTING is possible as post-event incident reports (like the Virginia Tech Review Panel Report and Safe Schools Initiative Report from the Department of Education / Secret Service and numerous others) clearly reveal.
And more good news…Smokey the Bear gets it and you can too! Smokey the Bear is all about PREVENTING forest fires and Smokey the Bear says “Only YOU can PREVENT wildfires”. Smokey the Bear understands that PREVENTING does not mean we create a law to ban matches. Smokey the Bear understands that PREVENTING does not mean that we place “armed fire fighters” at every tree in every forest. Smokey the Bear’s prevention strategy focuses on Awareness of consequences, Awareness of best practices, Awareness of surroundings and to speak up when YOU see someone in danger of starting a wildfire…Smokey the Bear understands PREVENTING.
School leaders (as well as college and organizational leaders) can learn a lot from Smokey the Bear when it comes to PREVENTING bullying, cyber bullying, suicides, mass shooters, drugs, alcohol, child abuse, sex abuse, gangs, threats to harm self and others and numerous other Student Safety challenges.
Sadly and inexcusably we continue see and read way too many interviews and articles about failures to prevent where school leaders and government leaders continue to say “they failed to connect the dots” when schools and colleges (governments and organizations) failed to prevent preventable incidents, suicides and tragedies.
As long as school and college leaders continue to implement primarily Security efforts for REACTING to risks and threats rather than Safety efforts for PREVENTING incidents and tragedies, schools, colleges, government and organizations will “fail to connect all the right dots”?
If you want to start PREVENTING incidents and tragedies…visit http://www.tipsprevent.com.
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Preventing Bullying – Like Baking a Cake?
Posted In Uncategorized on May 14th, 2013 Tags: bullying prevention
Baking a cake and preventing have more in common than you may think.
If you were going to bake a cake, you would start by finding your favorite cake recipe (and there are hundreds of them to choose from). Based on how serious you are about making a great cake, you can choose a simple recipe or a more comprehensive recipe.
Similarly, if you were going to prevent bullying, most schools start by finding their favorite bully prevention “recipe /program” (and there are hundreds of them to choose from). Based on how serious you are about preventing bullying, you can choose a simple program or a more comprehensive program.
You can find “recipes / programs” in books or you can buy “recipes / programs” online or you can listen to your favorite expert and purchase their “best recipe / program”.
But just finding/buying your favorite “recipe” for baking a cake or preventing bullying does not mean you instantly have a cake or a safe learning environment.
To bake a cake you need to get all the right ingredients and the right tools to measure the right amounts and mix them together in the right order and bake the cake at the right temperature for the right amount of time… and then you need the right frosting to create a great cake.
To prevent bullying you need all the right ingredients and the right tools to measure awareness, accountability and share all the right information with the right people in the right places at the right time…so the right people can do the right things and prevent preventable incidents like bullying (as well as cyber bullying, suicides, mass shootings, drugs, alcohol, child abuse, sex abuse, depression, etc.) and create a safer and more positive learning environment.
If you would like to know how schools and colleges are baking / creating a safer and more positive learning environment…click here.
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Arming Staff within Schools – A Reactive Solution with Increased Potential for Danger?
Posted In School Safety on March 28th, 2013 Tags: arming staff, School Safety, school weapons
The discussion on school safety is being held at every school and community across the Nation. The end goal is the same, ensuring the safety of every young child and staff member within the school. But, how we get there is up for debate.
One of the most common solutions being offered by many is to implement armed security guards or provide weapons to teachers/staff – after all as the NRA said, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
However, even good guys with guns can sometimes inadvertently lead to dangerous situations as we have seen recently in the news:
School Employee Shot During Gun Training:
SRO Accidentally Fires Gun at NY High School:
Security Guard Forgets Gun in School Bathroom
Bringing more guns into schools also creates added liability and potentially higher insurance costs for schools. Your school does not want to face a lawsuit after one of the teacher’s guns accidentally discharges and wounds a staff member or student! You may want to review this recent article from Risk and Insurance Magazine:
If schools do decide to implement armed guards or staff at schools, it is absolutely critical these staff members are trained extensively on gun safety and procedures are implemented to help ensure accidents like those above do not occur.
Instead of giving weapons to staff in part of the plan of how to REACT when an armed intruder enters the building, what if schools instead focus (their plans and funding) on ways to PREVENT an intruder from even coming to the school in the first place.
Schools and communities need to implement prevention strategies to identify potentially troubled or at-risk students so they can get in front of tragedy. Identifying red flags and concerning behaviors prior to a student carrying through with an attack is critical. As many have mentioned before and the Department of Education’s Safe School Initiative clearly revealed, students don’t just “snap” one day. School attacks are pre-meditated and planned and over 80% of the time, someone else knows about it. So, we need to provide that someone else with the tools to tell the right people what they know! And, once that information is shared, schools need to have clearly defined policies and procedures for investigating the information, sharing necessary details with law enforcement, and effectively intervening with the student.
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Research-Based Evidence vs. Real-Time/Results-Based Evidence
Posted In School Safety on February 15th, 2013
Which is more valuable, research-based evidence or real-time/results-based evidence?
Let’s start with a definition of each:
Research-based evidence – The term evidence-based is often in the educational and psychological literature as the level of evidence that supports the efficacy, generality, and use of a practice as indicated by research and usually includes the research of groups of individuals over-time and trending over-time.
Real-Time/Results-based evidence – measured in real-time based on results at the organizational level and based on results at the individual level
Research-based evidence relating to bullying, cyberbullying, sexual assaults, suicides and many other student safety related incidents can originate from many different sources. Research-based studies provide information gathered over-time from students and others to reveal trends and to reveal behaviors of different groups of people (gender, age, etc.). Trends can be helpful to researchers and to others to help identify different behaviors and/or validate the need for behavioral changes and/or reveal the need for better solutions to achieve different results and better results.
However, trends from research-based evidence may not be as helpful to a child/student/adult that is being relentlessly harassed, intimidated or bullied…the child/student/adult just wants someone to intervene and stop the attacks as soon as possible.
We know from lessons learned, research and real-world incidents that students (and adults too) can only take so much harassment before they hurt themselves (suicide, cutting, drugs, violence, etc.) or they hurt/kill others. We also know from lessons learned and post-incident reports that most tragedies and real-world incidents were PREVENTABLE. Unfortunately most schools (and most organizations) are not equipped to proactively prevent incidents, only REACT to incidents once they have occurred.
I can add from my 30 years of risk management, risk mitigation and prevention experiences that most organizations are spending and wasting a lot of time, money and resources because they are REACTING to incidents rather than PREVENTING incidents.
Lessons learned any my experiences reveal some key differences between research-based evidence and real-time/results-based evidence. Research-based evidence is more general and more reactive because the evidence and trends are a summary of groups of people over time. But many of the risks school administrators must deal with today, for example cyberbullying, are changing so fast that it is extremely difficult for research-based evidence to keep pace with timely feedback and solutions that help schools and organizations proactively prevent…so most schools and organizations are stuck in reaction mode which is expensive, tragic and unacceptable. (See blog on Virginia Tech’s enormous costs in “reacting” to the VT Massacre that could have been prevented if they had been equipped to “proactively prevent”)
What are some examples of real-time/results-based evidence? Intervening to prevent a child/student from committing suicide is an example of real-time/results-based evidence. Intervening when a student says they are planning to hurt others in retaliation for being harassed or bullied. Intervening when a student is harassed/bullied on a school bus or in a hallway or in a locker room or other locations. Intervening when an LGBT student is being relentlessly harassed and bullied based on their sexual preferences.
So which is more important? Research-based evidence or Real-time/results based evidence?
I think both are important and both should be utilized by all decision makers, school leaders and organizational leaders too. Unfortunately educators, researchers and government resources seem to ignore the real-time/results-based evidence suggesting an immediate success is not a huge success since they are used to analyzing data over a long period of time. I hope educators, researchers and government resources will contact me to discuss the real-time/results-based evidence that we are gathering from our clients…because saving one child from attempting suicide or from making a decision that may ruin their life is a “huge success” in the their world, in the real world and in my world.
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PROACTIVE PREVENTION…continued
Posted In Campus Safety, Risk Management, School Safety on January 15th, 2013 Tags: Incident Reporting, School Safety, student safety
As a follow-up to our previous blog, I wanted to share some real-world solutions that are helping schools proactively PREVENT.
Proactive prevention starts with empowering and equipping students, families, teachers, churches and other community members [like all the people coming forward now who observed “concerning behaviors” with this disconnected young man in Newtown, CT] with the right tools to anonymously or non-anonymously report incidents, concerning behaviors and signs of evil before the evil builds and escalates into a tragedy. Prevention is possible and prevention is very affordable.
A lot of time, money and resources are spent on reactive security equipment, plans and training, yet tragedies are still occurring. For example, schools and colleges invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions of dollars into:
- Security Personnel
- School Resource Officers
- Emergency Radio Systems
- Secured Door Monitors
- Annual Building/Security Reviews
- Crisis Response & Training
- Table Top Exercises
- Emergency Response Plans
- Building/Visitor Access Software
- Badges & Identification Cards
- Access Doors and Locks
- Surveillance Cameras
- Mass Notification Systems
- And numerous other response efforts
Are these expensive “old school” investments in reactive security and reactive responses really the best way to protect our students, teachers, schools and communities?
And because the bottom line plays such a major role in schools and colleges, how do real-world costs stack up between reacting vs. preventing?
Let’s take a look at some data and evidence from real-world incidents and tragedies and see.
- Virginia Tech has spent more the $48M dollars reacting to this preventable mass shooting tragedy.
- Penn State University has been fined more than $70M and spent more than $20M so far reacting to this preventable tragedy involving child abuse.
- South Hadley School District paid Phoebe Prince’s family $225,000 not to sue the district and also had significant legal fees in multiple court cases involving the school and the students involved in bullying Phoebe until she committed suicide.
- Pine Plains Central School District must pay $1M court settlement for their deliberate indifference involving the continuous bullying of a student.
These are just a few examples of evidence clearly showing that preventing incidents and tragedies would have been a lot less expensive to the school’s/college’s bottom line. In addition to these hard costs, think about the significant costs related to reputational damages for each school/college.
Even more costs can add up if bystanders, staff and family members are in need of counseling, mental health resources, and in some cases, health resources from their tragic experiences. Schools and colleges cannot tolerate or afford more tragedies and must change. “Old school reactive efforts” do not provide a safe haven for students or a safety net for adults and do not equip people to do the right things, connect the right dots and proactively prevent preventable incidents.
It is time to change, and the time to start preventing preventable incidents is right now. So what can be done and what is being done to prevent preventable incidents and prevent incidents from escalating and becoming the next tragedy? Real-world success stories provide guidance and solutions that are working in schools and colleges.
Problem: School and College leadership cannot prevent what they don’t know about, and “old school” incident reporting approaches (one-size-fits-all online forms, e-mail links, text messages, general hotlines, drop boxes, etc.) are clearly not the right tools to get the right information to all the right people.
Fact: Statistically, only 1 or 2 out of every 10 incidents are being reported, so 8 or 9 times out of 10 schools/colleges are in reactive mode.
Solution: Schools and colleges are using a new web-based, secure and anonymous prevention platform called TIPS with customizable incident reporting and surveys that are accessible from the school or college web site so the entire community has easy and anytime access to organization specific incident report types (bullying, cyber bullying/drama, weapons, threat to harm self, threat to harm others, child abuse, sexual assault, etc.) with customized forms for each. Then, and this is critical, once the incident report is submitted, the prevention platform must immediately and automatically get the right information to all of the right people in the right places so the “team” can investigate, connect all the right dots, intervene, document and proactively prevent preventable incidents.
Problem: Institutions have incident reports, but still fail to prevent preventable incidents and tragedies.
Fact: All of the following tragedies had incident reports of concerning behaviors: Virginia Tech, Penn State, Tucson, Colorado, South Hadley, Tehachapi, Anoka-Hennepin and many, many more.
Solution: Securely share the right information with the right people, designated by the school or college based on the incident type and school/campus. No meetings, no paper shuffling, no lost e-mails, no yellow sticky notes, no confusion about what actions have or have not been taken. Teams can securely access and document all actions taken, work together to investigate, intervene and prevent incidents and monitor at-risk individuals and incidents so they do not get a chance to escalate into more serious incidents and tragedies.
Problem: Bullying-related consequences and lawsuits are mounting and campuses are not equipped to prevent bullying or prevent consequences or prevent lawsuits.
Fact: South Hadley Public Schools failed to prevent recurring and relentless bullying of a student, which led to the suicide of the student, a $225,000 settlement with the family of the student, negative headlines, reputation damage and other legal fees due to criminal cases involving five students that were named as the bullies. More recently, Pine Plains Central School District was found to be deliberately indifferent for failing to prevent relentless harassment and bullying of a student through high school. The United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd circuit upheld a unanimous decision of a lower court ruling resulting in a $1M judgment.
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Which do you prefer…Preventing Evil or Reacting to Evil At Your Front Door?
Posted In Risk Management, School Safety on December 18th, 2012 Tags: Incident Reporting, Newtown Shooting, Prevention, School Safety, school shooting, TIPS
The evil that showed up at the front door of Sandy Hook Elementary School was horrible, morally unbelievable and extremely scary.
Most everyone is wondering how this could happen? How could this 20 year old kid be so full of evil that he would murder young innocent children, innocent adults and his own mother?
We are hearing and seeing a lot of reactions – emotional reactions mostly – to this evil and horrible incident. Emotional reactions are clearly justified as we are all human, especially when young innocent children are murdered and threatened. We are hearing emotional reactions focused at guns. We are hearing emotional reactions towards school security and we are seeing and hearing from lots of experts offering their explanations and suggestions. Interestingly enough, most of the experts’ suggestions are ‘reactive’ as they call for better locks, automatic door locks, more cameras, better lockdown equipment, better visitor management systems, armed teachers, armed guards, etc.
The ‘reactive’ suggestions are understandable…but shouldn’t we be focusing as much or more on proactive prevention?
In President Obama’s speech at the memorial Sunday evening in Newtown, CT, he asked, “Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm? He continued by answering his own question, “If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We’re not doing enough, and we will have to change.”
Clearly it is time to change, and as President Obama said, we need to take “meaningful action”.
Now is the time to do the right things. We cannot keep doing the same things and expect different results. We have to ask different questions to achieve different results, for example:
Are we going to prevent Evil from getting to the front door or are we going to continue to react to Evil when the threats are already at the front door?
Evidence clearly reveals that Evil builds up in a person over time, so we have time to intervene, help and prevent. Evidence clearly shows concerning behaviors involving the attacker(s) were present in nearly every tragedy, so why aren’t we connecting the dots and preventing preventable incidents?
A lot of time, money and resources are spent on reactive security equipment, yet tragedies still occur. It is true, we have to change, but are ‘old school’ experts and leaders really open to ‘new school’ change?
We are hearing a lot of emotional reactions focused on gun controls, and while gun control discussions may be good for news shows and politicians, with all the guns already out there is it realistic to believe all these guns will just disappear? And is it realistic to believe political and special interest groups will work together to make any real changes in our life time?
Then 10 minutes later on the same news show, other emotional reactions suggest we arm teachers with guns. Are we really going to put guns inside schools and hope armed teachers can protect our children? (and protect the guns from unauthorized access too)
Other emotional reactions suggest placing an armed guard in every school, but how realistic are armed guards in every school with limited budgets, limited resources, potential liabilities and ongoing training challenges?
The sad thing is that all of these popular suggestions are still “reacting” to Evil at the front door…what about solutions for “preventing” Evil from ever getting to the front door?
Proactive prevention starts with empowering and equipping students, families, teachers, churches and other community members [like all the people coming forward now who observed ‘concerning behaviors’ with this disconnected young man in Newtown, CT] with the right tools to anonymously or non-anonymously report incidents, concerning behaviors and signs of evil BEFORE the evil builds and escalates into a tragedy. Prevention is possible and very affordable and when we equip everyone to do their part and connect all the right dots, we can proactively prevent preventable incidents.
Did you know there are proven prevention platforms in real-life? Did you know there are real-life success stories where proactive prevention is working in schools and colleges?
Evidence shows proactive prevention works and we are seeing it work in the real-world where early adopter schools and colleges are using Awareity’s innovative and multiple award-winning TIPS risk management and prevention platform. The TIPS platform is a safe haven for students and a safety net for adults and equips everyone to do the right things in proactively preventing preventable incidents.
Wouldn’t you like to know how other schools and colleges are changing from reacting to evil to preventing evil?
Then don’t wait for Evil to show up at your door…take action right now! All you have to do is contact Awareity at info@awareity.com and request an online demonstration for your school leaders, school board and your school safety team members. We cannot tolerate ‘old school reaction efforts’ any longer…it is time to change and the time to prevent Evil is right now.
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How Two Oklahoma School Districts are Using Students to Improve Prevention and Intervention Efforts
Posted In Incident Reporting, Risk Management, School Safety on November 22nd, 2012 Tags: bullying prevention, Bullying Reporting, Incident Reporting, School Safety, student safety, TIPS
Bullying. Cyberbullying. Harassment. Violence. Weapons. Truancy. Student Achievement. While most school leaders want to focus their attention on the last item mentioned in that list, student achievement, school districts are finding themselves overwhelmed with school safety issues and constantly working to investigate and respond to situations, leaving fewer and fewer resources to improve learning and achievement.
So, what can be done to improve student safety and prevention efforts, and in turn, provide students with an environment they feel secure in to excel and expand their learning objectives?
In many situations, gaps exist between school administrators and policy, and what is actually happening on buses, in locker rooms, in hallways, at sporting events, and online on Facebook. In fact, in recent studies, 65% of victims said bullying was not reported by them or others to teachers or school officials. Even when a bullying victim had suffered injury, 40 percent of the time the students said the bullying was not reported. It is impossible for school leaders to prevent something they don’t know about it, so it is critical for districts to improve these numbers and encourage their student and staff to report ongoing harassment and other concerns.
Many school districts have installed cameras to monitor their environments, which may be necessary, but what if schools also utilized the hundreds (or thousands) of “cameras” they already have walking the halls of their schools each day?
Two Oklahoma School Districts are taking advantage of an innovative incident and risk management service to empower their students, parents and staff to proactively report concerning behaviors to district personnel. Tulsa Public Schools and Oklahoma City Public Schools are using TIPS, a web-based solution from Awareity, Inc., that allows for the anonymous reporting (via web or phone) of weapons possession, drug/alcohol use, harassment or intimidation, school vandalism, physical assault, threats of violence, suicide risk, abuse or neglect and other incidents.
TIPS ensures all incident reports are tracked, documented and responded to in a proactive manner. With a web-based platform, school administrators can access on-demand reporting to see if/when reports are made, when team members received and acknowledged each report, and what steps were taken to address the report. Team members collaborate through the platform to share ongoing findings and help connect all the dots needed to ensure a safe and responsive approach.
At Tulsa Public Schools, Tenna Whitsel, District Coordinator of Student Services, knew their district was not doing enough to comply with the Office of Civil Rights requirements for bullying and harassment. A Dear Colleague Letter sent to all schools in October 2011, made it clear that all schools are required to investigate bullying incidents and take immediate action to stop harassment and prevent its recurrence. If the school knows or reasonably should know about student harassment and fails to address its effects and take appropriate action, they are opening themselves up to federal investigations and expensive lawsuits.
Whitsel took immediate steps to implement the TIPS platform at the start of the second semester in the 2011-2012 school year. In its first 6 months of use, TPS saw immediate success across its schools. Below are just some of the situations in which TIPS was utilized.
Intervene/Prevent – Prevent the Escalation of Bullying – A parent used the TIPS reporting system to report incidents of physical bullying towards her daughter and several of her peers. The “bully” was so effective that the student was terrified at the sight of her in the hallway. Once the parent completed the online report, elementary school administration were able to quickly intervene and prevent further bullying. This also gave the administrators an opportunity to provided school-wide awareness & education regarding bullying.
Intervene/Prevent the Escalation of Cyber Bullying – A female student completed a TIPS report online, with assistance from her school counselor. Incident initially began as “cyber-teasing” on Facebook from another female peer at same school, teasing victim about a recent breakup with a male peer at same school. Administrators were able to meet with victim & parent, provided information and counsel regarding safe use of social media sites online. This also provided the middle school administration with an opportunity to raise student awareness of the negative effects of cyberbullying among students.
Intervene/Prevent – Prevent Self Harm – A high school teacher completed a TIPS report online, stating she was very concerned about the behavior of one of her English students. This female student had recently informed the teacher that she was thinking suicidal thoughts and was uncomfortable going to her next hour due to some of the students in the class. The HS Social Worker was notified, coordinated mental health services for student and family and provided a free assessment, which resulted in successful intervention and prevention of suicide.
Now well into the 2nd year of TIPS, Tulsa continues to receive feedback from students and parents and work with their school principals and counselors to immediately address concerns and prevent incidents from escalating into tragedies.
In the fall of 2012, Oklahoma City Public Schools launched the TIPS platform and their 587-STOP reporting hotline (also provided by Awareity). Initially designed to gather anonymous reports from students and parents regarding bullying and student safety concerns, Safe Schools Coordinator, Tracy Alvarez, immediately saw the value in TIPS and expanded the use of the program to document and track truancy cases, as well as bus and transportation issues. Now, if a bus driver or monitor sees concerning behavior on the way to or from school, they can immediately report concerns to the district’s transportation director, as well as the school’s principal for investigation. School administrators can quickly address concerns and also utilize ongoing reports to determine if particular bus routes or areas within schools need more supervision.
Many schools fear implementing an anonymous reporting capability within their schools will overwhelm staff with false or misleading reports. After speaking with Tulsa and OKCPS, it is clear that students are not interested in falsely getting their peers in trouble. In fact, victims and bystanders just want bullying and harassment to stop and are overwhelmingly supporting the new system. The schools have also been able to delegate incident types and locations for reports so each individual school within a district is responsible for handling the reports concerning their students. TIPS is actually saving valuable time and resources by eliminating paper-based student files, spreadsheets on behaviors and weekly meetings to discuss at-risk students.
By empowering your students, staff, faculty, parents and community members to be responsible for their own safety and the safety of others within your school districts, schools can continue to improve student safety ongoing. Is your school taking control of your learning environment?
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What Makes a Good Risk Manager?
Posted In Risk Management on August 17th, 2012
What makes a good risk manager? This was a discussion I participated in recently and most of the responses suggested a good risk manager had to have knowledge and ability – and needed to know who, how, why, when, where, how often, etc.
I agree a good risk manager should have each of the things mentioned above, however these are only part of what makes a good risk manager.
So I asked the following questions…What makes a good surgeon? A good race car driver? A good golfer?
They all need knowledge and ability and they need to know who, how, why, when, where, how often, etc. But real-world results and lessons learned clearly reveal these are only part of what makes a good surgeon, a good race car driver and a good golfer. Results and lessons learned clearly reveal each will only succeed if they have the “right tools”.
A good risk manager needs the “right tools” to ensure all appropriate people have access to the knowledge they need (the “right information”) and the “right tools” to measure awareness and accountability at the individual level…because remember if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it and we are talking about risk management. A good risk manager also needs to equip other people with the “right tools” to perform risk assessments (especially anonymous assessments and surveys). People clearly need the “right tools” to report red flags, threats, concerning behaviors, etc. And good risk managers need the “right tools” to get the “right information” (organization specific training, policies, roles, incident reports, risk assessments, documentation, etc.) to the “right people” so they can “do the right things”.
All you have to do is stop and take a good look at the headlines and you will see story after story where an organization failed to prevent a preventable tragedy/incident because they did not have the “right tools” to get the “right information” (which exists in nearly every incident) to the “right people” in the “right place” at the “right time” with the “right documentation” so people could have “done the right things”.
Risk managers face a global and organizational Gapidemic – meaning organizations have too many gaps in risk management and prevention – and a good risk manager is one that realizes they need the “right tools” to equip them to eliminate dangerous and costly gaps so they can prevent preventable incidents, expensive consequences, embarrassing headlines, big fines, damaging lawsuits and horrible tragedies.
And one more piece of valuable wisdom comes from Albert Einstein:
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
I believe most people want to do something and want to “do the right things”, but good risk managers will have to equip themselves and others with the “right tools” or their organization and their people will continue to be in reaction mode rather than proactively preventing preventable incidents and tragedies.
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Doing the Right Things – Part 5 and Conclusions
Posted In Uncategorized on June 28th, 2012
We know from a lot of research and lessons learned that the right information comes in many different forms and the right people includes many different individuals who can be located in many different places who need the right information at many different times so they can all do the right things. The next critical effort in the process of doing the right things involves the right documentation.
The right documentation is required and/or critically needed for:
- Compliance with Federal Laws
- Compliance with State Laws
- Compliance with Organizational Policies & Standards
- Legal Due Diligence in potential lawsuits
- Ongoing Risk Management and Risk Assessment Efforts
- Internal Controls and Progress Tracking
- Measuring Situational Awareness at the Individual Level
- Measuring Accountability at the Individual Level
- CYA and many other continuously changing obligations…
Lawsuits, examinations, accreditations and audits reveal the majority of organizations are attempting to meet their critically needed documentation efforts with haphazard approaches which can include manually intensive, paper intensive, spreadsheet-based, internal databases and etc. Lessons learned reveal time and time again these status quo documentation approaches are expensive, lack the level of integrity needed for lawsuits, do not deliver secure information sharing capabilities and lead to gaps and disconnects that prevent organizations from doing the right things and being able to prove it. These haphazard and outdated approaches can lead to huge and costly liabilities for your organization.
I have been involved in risk management, risk mitigation and prevention efforts for nearly 30 years and I after seeing way too many incidents (especially student safety, suicides, targeted attacks, domestic violence, child abuse and others) that could have been and should have been prevented…I decided it was time for a change and time to make a difference.
My 30+ years of experiences and my passion for child safety and my focus on preventing preventable tragedies is what motivates me to research hundreds and hundreds of tragedies, lawsuits and numerous other incidents. When you do as much research as we have done and continue to do here at Awareity and when you ask enough questions about how this happened, or why this happened, or why this did not happen, why this was not prevented and many other questions….the failures and results clearly reveal that the majority of organizations and individuals involved lacked the right tools for getting the right information to the right people in the right places at the right times with the right documentation so people could do the right things.
As successes continue to mount with early adopter organizations and as feedback from early adopters continue to provide incredibly valuable ideas, we continue to make the right tools even better. I also make an effort to reach out to others who have and share incredible passion about safety, hope and prevention including Kirk Smalley, Bob Johnson, Debbie Ferruzzi, Tenna Whitsel, Dr. Sang Lee and many others. By combining our passions and our ideas, we are making a bigger difference and we are helping others see how the right tools can get the right information to the right people in the right places at the right times with the right documentation so more people can do the right things.
If you would like to learn more about our passions or see how early adopters are leading the way for others, visit http://www.awareity.com or http://www.tipsprevent.com.
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Lessons Learned from Bullying of Bus Monitor
Posted In Risk Management, School Safety on June 24th, 2012
Did you see the video of the 68 year-old Bus Monitor getting bullied and abused by students?
This incident has received attention from across the nation with support pouring in for the bus monitor. But, perhaps what is more important is the lessons we learn from this incident to help prevent future situations from escalating.
Do School Administrators have any clue as to what is happening to Bus Monitors and Bus Drivers on their buses?
How many other Bus Monitors and Bus Drivers is this happening to? Why are Bus Monitors and Bus Drivers not properly trained with the right information on how to respond if students are abusing or bullying them? Do the Bus Monitors understand their roles and responsibilities for responding to the bullying or harassment of other students? Do the Bus Monitors provide a leadership role in the safety of the students on the bus?
Did you see the Bus Driver’s lack of awareness and lack of accountability in the BULLY movie? One of the students featured in the movie was tortured and bullied daily on the bus and due to a lack of awareness and reporting, school administrators and parents were clueless about the situation.
This video, the BULLY movie and too many other incidents clearly reveal the disconnects and gaps that exist between School Administrators and what is happening on buses, in locker rooms, in hallways, at sporting events, online and numerous other locations where bullying and abuse is taking place.
Did you see the passion from caring individuals once a student uploaded the video for others to see? I believe most people want to do the right things, but it is the responsibility of School Administrators to equip their Students, Bus Monitors, Bus Drivers, Teachers, Staff, Counselors, Parents and other community members with the right tools to get the right information to the right people in the right places at the right time with the right documentation so people can do the right things….right now!
I can’t imagine any School Administrators would want to see their name and their school in the headlines around the world for an incident like this.
If you want to see how early adopter schools have taken the lead in utilizing innovative tools that empower students and all personnel at the school to take proactive actions, I hope you will have your School Administrators contact me at info @ awareity.com as soon as possible.
Early adopter schools are empowering their students, personnel, parents and others with the ability to report incidents (anonymously or non-anonymously) and using innovative tools ensure the incident report (and videos, screenshots, etc.) gets to the right people immediately so they can investigate, intervene and prevent incidents like these before they lead to a tragedy or go viral on the Internet and lead to lots of expensive costs (legal, reputation, media, parent outrage, stress, investigations, fines, etc.) that could have been prevented.
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