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What you don’t know about your Student Records System and FERPA…could cost you dearly! (and many others too!) CREATING MORE LIABILITIES is not exactly a “top priority” for most Administrators and Board members, but creating more liabilities is exactly what their Student Records System and their lack of awareness of FERPA could be doing. As I speak at K-12 and Higher Education conferences all across the nation, it is shocking how many Administrators, faculty and staff (TATs, BITs, counselors, SROs, nurses, coaches, etc.) are unaware of the section of FERPA that describes “law enforcement unit records and a law enforcement unit”. To understand how thisRead More →

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As mentioned in Part 5 of this blog series, there are 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention, Awareness is step 1, Collecting the Dots is step 2, Assessing the Dots is step 3 and Connecting the Dots is step 4. Step 5 is Intervention & Monitoring and Step 6 is Preventing & Monitoring. What does Intervention and Prevention and Monitoring involve? Collaboration in creating an intervention plan, 100% cooperation across organizations to implement the intervention plan, continuously monitoring behaviors to see if intervention plan is working, continuously monitoring situation to determine if risk levels / individuals are escalating or de-escalating based on latest information, immediateRead More →

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As mentioned in Part 4 of this blog series, there are 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention, Awareness is step 1, Collecting the Dots is step 2 and Assessing the Dots is step 3. Step 4 is Connecting the Dots. What does Connecting the Dots involve? Connecting the Dots involves connecting “team members” (TAT, BIT, etc.) with third-party resources (mental health, law enforcement, legal, etc.), connecting current incident reports with previous incident reports, connecting current behaviors with history of behaviors, connecting intervention efforts with previous intervention outcomes, connecting with family members, friends, co-workers, students and others to gain as much information as possible, and securelyRead More →

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As mentioned in Part 3 of this blog series, Awareness is the first step in the 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention and Collecting the Dots is the second step. Step 3 is Assessing the Dots. What does Assessing the Dots involve? Assessing the Dots involves several important steps, roles, responsibilities and processes that should be assigned to and performed by individuals on an organization’s Threat Assessment Team. The ANSI Workplace Violence Prevention & Intervention Standard defines Threat Assessment as the investigative and analytical process followed by a professional qualified by education, training, or experience to determine the nature and level of risk of violenceRead More →

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As mentioned in Part 2 of this blog series, Awareness is the first step in the 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention. Step 2 is Collecting the Dots. What does Collecting the Dots involve? Collecting the Dots is critical because without this step, there are no “dots” to assess and connect, making prevention impossible. Collecting the dots involves gathering information and reports of pre-incident indicators, warning signs and red flags, concerning behaviors, suspicious activities, social media evidence, survey data and historical information. Why else is Collecting the Dots such a critical step? Your organization’s threat assessment/risk assessment team cannot prevent things they don’t know about.Read More →

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As mentioned in Part 1 of this blog series, the 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention are the result of over 40 years of experiences, validated by prevention failures described in detail in post-incident reports AND confirmed by real-world prevention success stories from clients. The first Step of the 6 Essential Steps to Proactive Prevention is Awareness. More specifically, Awareness includes situational awareness and updated awareness on an ongoing basis with accountability and measurability at the individual level. Some or most of you may be thinking that your organization has Awareness covered…YOU DON’T! First, wipe the sand out of your eyes and ears and thenRead More →

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My Story My name is Rick Shaw and I am the founder and CEO of Awareity, and the originator of the proven and multi-award-winning “TIPS prevention platform”. My background includes more than 30 years of real-world business related experience, combined with several years of extensive research. My business experience includes performing numerous types of assessments (risk, threat, information security, physical security, safety, compliance and others) and prevention efforts across many different types and sizes of organizations. My research involves reviewing hundreds of post-incident reports – the facts and findings released after investigations, tragedies and lawsuits. Combined, these efforts have helped me to identify common “gaps,Read More →

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A NASCAR accident on opening weekend has provided several valuable lessons learned, but only if you are listening and ONLY if you take actions to proactively prevent future incidents. Kevin Harvick gets proactive prevention: “It’s a reaction from the racetrack unfortunately,” Harvick said. “I hit the same wall a little further up last year at this particular race and kind of voiced my opinion, and unfortunately I was just a dot on the chart and there was no reaction.” “Now there’s a reaction from the racetrack. Hopefully this is a lesson learned. You don’t want to have a reaction. Racetracks have to be proactive andRead More →

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Cover ups – attempts to prevent others from discovering the truth about a serious mistake, moral or ethical failure, abuse, assault or numerous other illegal actions and crimes have existed for many years. In the past, people who became aware of a cover up had limited options to come forward and report the truth. Most (if not all) of the conventional reporting options, such as contacting management, calling law enforcement, telling a trusted adult or calling a company ethics line, failed to provide anonymity or even confidentiality. More recently, organizations are offering online reporting forms, text reporting and apps, but none of these options areRead More →

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“In the absence of a system capable of identifying (Lopez) as a threat, and because the unit was unaware and unable to address the variety of stressors in (Lopez’s) life, Fort Hood was not able to prevent the shooting,” lead investigator Lt. Gen. Joseph E. Martz said. Connecting the dots… The Army’s post-incident investigation report of the April 2 shooting rampage came to the conclusion that the Army did not have the right tools to prevent the shooting…even though there were pre-incident indicators in the days, weeks and months prior. While officials found no single factor that prompted Spc. Ivan Lopez to go on aRead More →