UNC Researcher Joins $1-Million Funded Project to Update K-12 Threat-Assessment Tool
October 30, 2019
University of Northern Colorado Professor Sarah Goodrum is a co-principal investigator on a nearly $1 million grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to evaluate the Colorado School Safety Resource Center’s threat-assessment tool to prevent school violence.
The grant, awarded to the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and led by the Colorado School Safety Resource Center, will be executed in collaboration with the University of Colorado's Center for the Study of Prevention of Violence and UNC’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. The goal is to improve the threat assessment training program for school officials in Colorado.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to evaluate the way threat assessments are done
and trained on in the state of Colorado,” said Goodrum, Ph.D., who is department chair
of UNC’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (image at right). “Our hope is to improve the training process for school staff so that they can
identify, assess and support students of concern with the goal of preventing violence
in school settings.”
The project is funded for three years with a timeline of refining the Colorado threat-assessment tool and training program in the first six months. The revised tool then will be implemented in five pilot schools to monitor how school staff implement the updated content and trainings. The final task includes making adjustments from the pilot study and delivering it to over 30 schools in Colorado.
This work builds on Goodrum’s research with Bill Woodward on the 2013 shooting at Arapahoe High School and the Attorney General’s Colorado School Safety Guide.
About the Grant
- Project Title: The Colorado Threat Assessment and Management Protocol: A Model for Training and Implementation
- Grant Award: $999,997
- Funding Agency: Bureau of Justice Assistance
- Researchers: University of Coloardo’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence’s Sabrina Arredondo Mattson PI and Beverly Kingston Co-PI (Bill Woodward, Training Director) and Sarah Goodrum, Co-PI and Professor at UNC
