THREAT / RISK ASSESSMENT

Canadian Center for Threat Assessment & Trauma Response:

http://www.cctatr.com/threat_assess.htm

Responding to the Stress of Terrorism and Armed Conflicts:

http://mdm.ca/cmhsn/teens.htm

National Threat Assessment Center:

http://www.ustreas.gov/usss/ntac.shtml

This web site includes the article that Kevin Cameron included in the handout on page 10: Threat Assessment: Defining an Approach for Evaluating Risk of Targeted Violence, as well as discussion on the ten questions to consider when conducting a threat assessment (as listed on p. 17 of Kevin's handout).

The web site also includes three excellent articles on Targeted Violence in Schools:

1. US S.S. Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools

2. Evaluating Risk for Targeted Violence in Schools: Comparing Risk Assessment, Threat Assessment and other approaches (from Psychology in the Schools, 2001).

3. Chicago Sun Times - a very good series published in October 2000. Articles included:

Deadly Lessons - School shooters tell why

Examining the psyche of an adolescent killer

Listening tips can help boys open up

Case studies: Secret service findings

Bullying, tormenting often led to revenge in cases studied

Thoughts, poetry scream of violence, despair

Violence prevention methods may not help

Shooters usually tell their friends what they are planning

Kevin Cameron - Threat / Risk Assessment Conference Review

On April 20, 1999, two students entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and carried out an elaborate plan to terrorize their school. This wasn't the first school shooting in United States schools, but it was the worst. Canadians, like our American counterparts, were shocked at the depth of violence in this incident.

It wasn't until 8 days later, when a Canadian student entered a Canadian school with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and opened fire that an American tragedy was to become a Canadian experience.

The majority of research on this topic has been related to initial response and the impact of trauma on affected individuals. Little has been written about how trauma impacts families, schools, communities and beyond.

There appears to be critical periods as part of traumatic aftermath for increased student threats to duplicate the crimes of Taber and Littleton. These critical periods may influence high-risk student behavior for years to come.

Many students, school staff, and parents across Canada have been affected by the possibility that it could happen here, too!

About Kevin Cameron

Trained as a marital and family therapist and a play-based child therapist, Mr. Kevin Cameron has worked in the helping professions for over 14 years. His work experience includes the inner-city housing projects of Halifax, working with street kids in Edmonton, and in a variety of roles in child welfare and young offender systems throughout Alberta.

During the tragic 1999 school shooting in Taber, Alberta, Mr. Cameron led the Taber Crisis Response Team. Two weeks later, he was seconded by the Alberta government to the Taber response project. In this capacity, he began the development of the Traumatic Event Systems (TES) model that helped to explain, describe and predict significant aspects of the traumatic aftermath from the school shooting locally, provincially and nationally. This model included a basis for differentiating between crises vs. traumatic events; and a process for individual and systems recovery.

As part of his approach to understanding the impact of trauma, Mr. Cameron began to develop international contacts with experts in this new field of student threat assessment.