Creating a School Climate that Promotes Safety at Every Level

By Christine Murray, See the Triumph Co-Founder

Elementary, middle, and high schools can play a powerful role in promoting safe, healthy relationships in students’ lives. Recent years have brought an intense focus to issues related to school safety, especially in the wake of the tragic school shootings that have made the news. In response to these events, many schools have taken a deeper look at their security procedures. For example, many schools practice lockdown drills so that teachers can train students in what to do in the event of a school shooting or other serious emergency situation.

A focus on school safety can move beyond these measures toward a more comprehensive focus on fostering safe, healthy relationships, among students, between students and their teachers, and in the home lives of students. In addition to becoming equipped to respond to students who are known or suspected to be living in violent homes, as we’ve addressed in a recent blog post, school personnel can be proactive to foster school climates that promote safety at every level. This proactive approach aims to prevent future violence, create a culture that does not tolerate violent or abusive behaviors, and build a community of students, faculty, and staff who intentionally act in ways that foster safe and peaceful relationships.

What does this climate look like? Every school is unique, so it’s likely that each school’s needs and goals for fostering this safety-focused climate will vary. However, the following list includes some goals and strategies that schools may work toward in fostering a school climate that promotes safe, healthy relationships.

Can you envision the type of school described below?

• The school’s leadership makes an intentional effort to promote safety. School leaders understand the importance of safety for creating an optimal learning environment for students. The leaders are committed to ensuring that faculty and staff are equipped with the knowledge to recognize warning signs that may indicate that students are impacted by violence and abuse, and they understand the school’s policies about how to respond to students who have experienced trauma.
• Students receive age-appropriate information about safe, healthy relationships. The type of information that students can understand about safe, healthy relationships depends on their age and developmental level. Educational efforts to raise awareness about safe, healthy relationships, as well as risk factors for abuse, are tailored to students’ level of understanding. Even very young children receive information about respect, kindness, and friendship. At all ages, students understand the risks of bullying and how the school responds when bullying occurs. Older students who are at the ages of dating and romantic relationships learn about the risks of dating violence and signs of an abusive dating relationship.
• Parents are involved in efforts to foster a school climate of safety. Many parents have strong opinions as to the extent to which they believe schools should be involved in educating their children about moral and social issues. Therefore, schools partner with parents to create strategies that foster safety in ways that are aligned with the value systems of students’ families. Parents understand the important role they play in modeling safe, nonviolent relationships for their children. With this in mind, they maintain an open dialogue with their children so that children can seek the help of their parents when faced with possible violence. For example, a child feels comfortable sharing with their parent that they’ve witnessed a bullying incident at school, and the parent and child discuss the options for how to respond to this situation. Schools offer programming to help equip parents to have these difficult conversations and to educate parents about the resources available to them if difficult situations arise.
• Schools have strong, collaborative relationships with organizations working in their communities to prevent and respond to violence and abuse. School-community partnerships help to ensure that people who are impacted by violence and abuse receive the services and resources they need. For example, if a mother of a student shares with a teacher that she’s in an abusive relationship, the teacher knows the number to the local domestic violence hotline and helps the mother know what community services might help the mother work toward safety. With strong relationships firmly established between the school and local agencies, school personnel can help students and their families identify and access useful resources to promote their safety. These partnerships also can help schools to bring in expert professionals from the community to educate students and train teachers and other school personnel about the dynamics of violence and abuse and about strategies for fostering safe, healthy relationships.
• Barriers to safety and nonviolence are identified and addressed. The barriers that hinder people’s safety vary from community to community. However, common barriers include financial challenges, cultural issues (e.g., language barriers or community norms), and a lack of access to resources. To address these barriers, schools undergo an intentional process of identifying the most significant barriers faced by students and their families. Once identified, they work both internally and externally (i.e., in partnership with other community organizations and the larger school system) to overcome these barriers.
• Schools’ cultural norms value and recognize students who model and encourage safe, nonviolent behaviors. Peer pressure can lead many students into engaging in behaviors that run contrary to a climate of safety and nonviolence, such as bullying, forming cliques, and, for older children, engaging in drug or alcohol abuse. Therefore, schools work toward creating social norms that highlight positive behaviors and leadership qualities among students. For example, awards may be established to honor students who have been especially proactive in preventing bullying. In their disciplinary approaches, schools work toward not only punishing negative behaviors, but also toward rewarding positive behaviors, especially those that foster respect and kindness toward others.
• Over the long-term, schools remain committed to addressing new safety risks and challenges as they arise. The landscape of violence and abuse has changed dramatically with the proliferation of technology into people’s lives. Schools committed to fostering a climate of nonviolence stay current with emerging trends so that they can update their policies and strategies to prevent and respond to violence. For example, personnel in a high school that recognize the growing presence of cyber-abuse involved in bullying and/or teen dating violence take steps to educate students about this form of abuse and update school policies to ensure that this type of abuse is addressed.

The strategies listed above are just a sampling of the ways that schools can work toward fostering a climate of safety and nonviolence. Working toward this climate requires “big picture” thinking that leads to creative strategies that meet the changing needs of diverse student populations and their families. Because of the amount of time that students spend at school and involved in school-related activities, schools have a powerful influence on the lives of students. This influence can be channeled toward helping create students who are informed, engaged students who learn how to promote safe, nonviolent lives and relationships.