Date: 08/27/2015
Final
Panel discussion concerning youth in crisis
SCHOOL SAFETY AND YOUTH IN CRISIS
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10:01 AM -- Panel discussion concerning youth in crisis
The committee took a brief recess.
10:16 AM
The committee came back to order. Senator Scheffel invited the members of the next panel to the table. They included Christine Harms, Director, School Safety Resource Center, Rebecca Holmes, Associate Director, CDE, and Jarrod Hindman, Suicide Prevention Unit Manager, Office of Suicide Prevention, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Mr. Hindman introduced himself and told the committee about his background. He stated that 220 schools and 40,000 youth participated in the most recent Healthy Kids Colorado survey. He explained that the data from the survey can now be looked at from a regional perspective. He said that his office is looking at both risk factors and protective factors, and are examining shared factors instead of working in subject-matter silos. He said that studies show when there is an increase in school engagement for students, it impacts multiple areas of violence including bullying, suicide, and sexual assault. He spoke about the Sources of Strength pilot program which focuses on protective factors for suicide prevention.
10:28 AM
The panelists answered questions pertaining to student engagement which can be defined as a student's perception of feeling connected to school. Heidi Ganahl asked about the anonymity of the Healthy Kids Colorado survey. Ms. Holmes responded that even though the survey has anonymity controls in place, school districts are concerned about privacy issues. Greg McDonald asked about length of survey and expressed his concern with how much time is taken away from class time. The committee members discussed how to encourage more schools to participate in the survey and talked about suicide prevention programs and tactics in further detail.
10:43 AM
Mr. Hindman told the committee that his office works to coordinate suicide prevention across the life span, not just for youth, and talked about the mission and charge of the suicide prevention commission. He discussed some of the specific programs that his office is currently working on and answered questions about data on the link between suicide and homicide. The panelists answered questions regarding what to do about the issues of communication and how to handle privacy regulations. In response, Ms. Harms spoke about the new Colorado Crisis Services as a way to help improve communications and bridge the gap between schools, parents, and mental health specialists. The committee spoke about the need to hear student voices. Mr. Hindman spoke about the peer leader model of the Sources of Strength program and Ms. Harms spoke about the Safe2Tell program as ways to engage students.
10:58 AM
The panel answered questions about what exactly schools need to do to make sure their students are safe at school. Ms. Harms responded that it needs to be a variety of things, from abiding by the Safe schools Act, having trained all staff members that need to be trained, implementing bullying and suicide prevention programs, determining how to respond to a variety of types of incidents, strengthening school threat assessment protocols, and putting in place an incident recovery team (Attachment E).
15SchoolSafety0827AttachE.pdf