Annual Report on School Safety--October 1998

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Chapter 3: Model Programs

This chapter presents several examples of programs that are well designed and can be implemented in combinations to form a comprehensive school safety plan. The programs cited in this chapter were identified under a U.S. Department of Justice grant to the Hamilton Fish National Institute on School and Community Violence with assistance from Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy^[1]. The examples cover a wide variety of problems that schools face. While reviewing these programs, keep in mind that problems generally do not occur in isolation. Creating a safe school requires attending to the school's physical, social, and cultural environments. A key component of increasing school safety is selecting programs that can be combined as part of an effective plan for addressing local problems. As the previous chapter on developing and implementing a comprehensive school safety plan pointed out, program and strategy selection must be based on a thorough assessment of each school's needs. Community stakeholders must also be involved in creating and implementing the comprehensive plan.

The models presented here have been designated as either demonstrated or promising. Demonstrated models have been rigorously tested in the field and have solid evidence of their effectiveness. In the evaluation of demonstrated models, two groups of youth were examined before and after an intervention; one group received the intervention, while the other (the control group) did not. The intervention group demonstrated a larger reduction in violence over time compared to the control group.

Promising models are well designed but have not yet been thoroughly tested. Some promising models have been evaluated, but they need further testing with stronger evaluation designs to prove their effectiveness. Other promising models have not yet been evaluated, but they are based on previous research. While some models have effects in more than one area, they are categorized by their emphasis or demonstrated effects. Some models have been developed, implemented, and evaluated in multiple sites, while others have been used only in a single school.

1 The U.S. Department of Education has convened an Expert Panel on Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools to oversee a process for identifying and designating promising and exemplary school-based programs that strengthen prevention practices, so that practitioners can make better informed decisions in their ongoing efforts. The results from the U.S. Department of Education's Expert Panel will be disseminated in Summer 1999.

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