ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Recent safety threats in Penfield and Victor school districts have many parents wondering about school safety and what happens behind the scenes when a threat is made.
News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke spoke with some of the members of the Rochester Threat Advisory Committee (ROCTAC), a local team of law enforcement, mental health providers, employers and school districts whose sole purpose is identifying potential mass shooters and intervening before they act.
“Generally schools will bring me in if the child is exhibiting some concerning behavior, any indication that they want to hurt a particular staff member or another student, or their computers have information that they’re looking to hurt somebody or how to do it, or carry it out,” says Dr. Kostas Katsavdakis, a forensic psychologist that works with ROCTAC.
The team looks for very specific warning signs. “It is very common for kids to tell other people that something bad is about to happen, they might not tell the exact target but they’ll tell other people,” Dr. Katsavdakis explains. “They become fixated on something so much so that their grades start to decrease and they can’t have their relationships anymore, so there are specific signs we’re looking for that we know exist in these kids, they don’t come out of the blue, they don’t snap, they give these signs months if not years in advance.”
Once a potential threat is identified, ROCTAC works to find alternative solutions. “Then we look at what are the alternate forms of solving that grievance, solving that frustration that doesn’t involve violence,” says Dr. Katsavdakis.
Building trust with the student and their family can take time. “Those are people who are having very difficult times, so we spend sometimes weeks just figuring out how we are going to penetrate into that person’s world, where can we get trust builders in that world, how can we start doing connectivity with other stakeholders around that person,” explains Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter.
During that process in a school setting, the student is typically removed. Families may need to agree to therapy, daily searches of the student’s devices and backpacks, and restrictions on where they can go in the building and who they can interact with.
ROCTAC has become a national example for other communities over the last 8 years, but that’s not how they measure success, “we can go back and we can look at a potential school shooter in one of our local communities, real story, and now she’s got her college degree, she’s successful, no one is worried about her and she’s going to begin a family pretty soon, that’s success,” says Sheriff Baxter.
For more information about ROCTAC: Click Here.
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Building trust is key: How Rochester’s threat advisory team works with students and families to prevent targeted school violence WHEC.com.
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