Nebraska – Students today face ongoing challenges with bullying, weapons, drugs/alcohol, violence and more. Disconnects between youth and school educators cause many of these student issues to unfortunately slip through the cracks. Allen Consolidated School District in Nebraska is implementing a new tool to try to increase prevention and give their students/parent an effective and secure way to share concerns.
Allen Schools have implemented Awareity’s multi-award-winning TIPS (Threat assessment, Incident management & Prevention Services) prevention platform to help enhance student/staff communications and improve overall school safety. TIPS is an innovative solution equipping students, teachers, staff, parents and community members to anonymously report bullying, cyber bullying, weapons, abuse, vandalism, suicide risks and other concerning behaviors that may have a negative effect on the school’s learning environment.
According to Lana Oswald, Allen Schools High School Principal, “As a small school, we still rely a lot on personal contact through phone calls, e-mail, and even face-to-face meetings with parents, but we wanted a secure way for students and parents to share information with us anonymously as well. Rather than providing a crude “Bullying Concerns” box in the office, TIPS allows us a much more efficient and timely mechanism to both receive reports and thoroughly investigate and follow-up with ongoing documentation. We can easily communicate between schools and each other (counselors, principals, etc.) without relying on back and forth e-mails, voicemails, etc. TIPS is changing the way we can identify, respond and address student safety issues proactively before they turn into tragedy.”
How it works: if you are worried about friends, students or others, or if you witness concerning behaviors, simply go to the Allen Schools website (www.allenschools.org) and click on the TIPS REPORT INCIDENT button. Select the appropriate incident type, share the necessary details and then SUBMIT. TIPS can also be used to report acts of kindness/Hero reports.
Once an incident report is made, the principal and designated staff members are immediately notified via e-mail and can securely review the report details to begin coordinating an appropriate assessment and response. TIPS provides all team members with the right tools to track and document the actions taken, see related reports, set automated reminders, review past reports, check school policy, and connect the right dots so no students or incidents are overlooked. Classroom incidents, parent complaints, vandalism reports and more can also be tracked within TIPS, so related reports can be easily connected and used to identify at-risk individuals.
“Our school participated in a student survey following the Stand for the Silent anti-bullying presentation and it was clear our students knew about concerning behaviors including bullying, violence, drugs/alcohol, and suicide that were not being communicated to our staff. With TIPS we can reach our students in a whole new way and allow them to share information anonymously to protect each other and our school community.” says Oswald.
TIPS was launched within Allen Schools this month and announced to all parents in a letter provided by the school. The student task force played a large role in creating posters and spreading awareness about the resource to fellow students.
The TIPS platform is being utilized in over 400 schools across the nation and has empowered schools to intervene and prevent multiple suicides, bullying escalations and active shooter attacks. TIPS is the only comprehensive reporting solution available that also includes tools for threat assessment and ongoing training and policy acknowledgement.
About Awareity:
Awareity is reinventing the way schools and organizations of all types improve safety, prevent regulatory failures, compliance fines, lawsuits, privacy breaches, safety disconnects, operational challenges, ethical lapses, incident reporting failures, workplace violence and more. Awareity offers an innovative and cost-effective prevention platform to connect the dots, eliminate embarrassing gaps and realize a better bottom line.
Contact:
Katie Johnson
402.730.0077
info@awareity.com
www.awareity.com
###