Counseling, more than armed officers, makes our schools safer after shootings: Opinion
ByStar-Ledger Guest Columnist
on January 06, 2013 at 8:40 AM
By Joseph E. Colford
Now that some time has passed since the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., perhaps it is time to reflect on what actions our schools might look forward to in 2013 and beyond.
When trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, it is typically reassuring for people to create neat and tidy explanations for the causes of events such as Newtown and to generate air-tight solutions to prevent them from happening again. However, such explanations and solutions that might fit neatly on a car bumper sticker have little efficacy in practice.
A bumper sticker explanation was that Adam Lanza killed those children because of a single mental health issue, whether it be Asperger’s, autism, a personality disorder or any other condition suggested in the media. To suggest this profile, or any profile generated by a checklist of warning signs, only invites the stereotyping and stigmatizing of innocent individuals who are unlikely to commit any violent act at all.
This also may send people with true mental health needs into hiding, thereby keeping them from seeking effective treatment. Any person’s behavior, particularly that of the Newtown shooter, occurs in a much larger context. And without an understanding of other factors within this context, only unfair speculation can result.
The NRA’s suggestion of posting armed guards in school buildings is a bumper sticker solution, too. Introducing guns, even those in the possession of trained law enforcement professionals, changes the tone or “climate” of the school and harkens back to the “zero-tolerance” policies enacted by many districts after the Columbine High School shootings of 1999.
Such policies have long since been repudiated as ineffective and harmful by several professional organizations — the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Psychological Association among them. What is unsettling, however, are the newspaper accounts since Newtown about districts that have either already placed armed guards in their schools or are considering doing so.
School shootings are very rare events, although the few that do occur are painfully tragic. In 1999, when 15 people died at Columbine, the odds of a child dying in school were one in 2 million. The 41 school shooters who were the subjects of a Secret Service and Department of Education study in 2002 were all current or former students at the schools where they did their deeds. It is this group of students whom schools, not the NRA, are in the best position to help with the prevention of school violence.
Trained mental health professionals (school psychologists, counselors and social workers) are critical members of each school’s crisis team that investigates reports from students and staff about troubling or threatening comments or actions. Students are encouraged, as bystanders or witnesses to such words or actions, to break the “code of silence” about reporting a peer to school authorities to keep a potential threat from being enacted.
In the case of Adam Lanza, besides the news descriptions of him being a “loner” while in school, there appeared to have been no other comments or behaviors that would have brought him to the attention of school authorities. In fact, only a minority of the 41 school shooters in the 2002 study were considered loners; most were in the mainstream socially.
True prevention involves strengthening a sense of community among the schools and their students, a sense of “school-bondedness” for all children, a feeling that they really belong in school and that there are people there concerned for their welfare. Involving students in the school community makes them less likely to resort to violence.
Finally, enhancing mental health services for all children is a critical component of violence prevention. Research suggests that most children, particularly those in poverty, will not seek such services in the private sector. They seek it only in the schools, where they have access to trained professionals to assist with their mental health needs. To see armed guards replacing mental health providers would be unfortunate.
These suggestions may not be bumper sticker-worthy, but they are in the best interests of our schoolchildren.
Joseph E. Colford is president of the New Jersey Association of School Psychologists and director of the graduate program in school psychology at Georgian Court University.