ABSTRACT
School violence, having been dubbed a crisis, permeates the national consciousness and media outlets. A heightened awareness of the potential tragedy of a school-related violent incident has prompted school administrators, law enforcement professionals, and mental health professionals to put into place methods for identifying and intervening proactively with potentially violent students and situations. Schools can certainly provide valuable prevention programs, such as social skills training, but multiple community settings are not generally well equipped to deliver individualized, broadly based services to small numbers of identified students. A crucial component of any school violence program is thus a school environment where ongoing activities and problems of students are discussed, rather than tallied with structured assessment instruments. Although connecting schools with families and communities is often given as a mantra for school reform, it is worth chanting once more when discussing interventions to prevent school violence.
