When: Thursday, April 24 - 1:00 PM

Duration: 1 hours 30 minutes

Location: Zoom

Event Details:

There is a growing need to understand and attend to violent threats in our field. Sometimes, threats of violence and violent behavior are ways for children and adolescents to express frustration or anger without the intent to carry out any harm. And other times, these threats warrant further evaluation to identify, assess, and address potential threats of violence.

This 2-part clinical intensive will assist behavioral health providers in identifying risk factors, prevention strategies, and management options for threats of violence and violent behavior. The information will highlight the contextual examination of threats, what to do, and how to do it. Violent attacks can be prevented when we understand threatening behavior, know how to identify signs of attack, and then move quickly to assess and de-escalate a situation.

After attending this offering, participants will be able to:

• Identify best practice prescriptive recommendations for preventive behavioral threat assessment and management
• Explain the use of preventive behavioral threat assessment, equity, inclusion, restorative practice, and trauma informed care to decrease risk and arrests
• Recognize and understand bias and how to avoid it through collaborative assessment
• Use a site-based protocol that directs assessment and effective intervention and management
• Apply skills to case studies as tabletop exercises

About the Presenter: 

John Van Dreal, Principal at John Van Dreal Consulting, is a school psychologist and the retired director of the Safety and Risk Management Services department for the Salem-Keizer School District. He has more than 35 years of experience in threat assessment and management, psycho-educational evaluation, crisis intervention, behavioral intervention, and security and risk management systems consultation. He is the recipient of the 2024 Association of Threat Assessment Professional’s Lifetime Achievement Award and is recognized internationally as an expert in threat assessment and as a pioneer of multidisciplinary threat assessment.

In 1999, he began the development and implementation of the Salem-Keizer Model, a multiagency student threat assessment system that is considered by experts to be a leading practice and is identified by the U.S. Department of Education and the What Works Clearinghouse as a best-practices program. Through that collaboration, he has worked daily with multidisciplinary personnel in the assessment and management of youth and adult threats of aggression within the schools, higher education, public and private institutions, and the community. As a practitioner, he has conducted thousands of threat assessments and managed hundreds of high-risk cases. John has been a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals since 2000. He has authored/co-authored several books and a number of threat assessment and school security projects, including legislation. He has advised on, or contributed to, a number of threat assessment guides and has been interviewed by a number of news outlets.

John is an accomplished instructor and presenter, having trained education staff, mental health staff, and law enforcement officers from more than 1000 school districts, colleges and universities, and communities. He has led in the effort to include equity, trauma informed care, inclusion, and restorative practice in violence prevention and has assisted in the implementation of threat assessment systems and the formation of threat assessment teams throughout the country.