Editorial: School Threat Assessments: Beyond Risks to Treatment Recommendations

Abstract

School is a place for learning and social and emotional growth, where students should feel safe and secure as they develop and ideally flourish. However, violence in schools has begun to weigh on the minds of learners, educators, and guardians, with active shooter drills, added physical security measures, and tragedies of school violence. Child and adolescent psychiatrists are increasingly called upon to evaluate children or adolescents who make threats. Child and adolescent psychiatrists are uniquely skilled to conduct comprehensive assessments and to make recommendations that prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone involved.^1-3 Although the immediate task is to identify risk and to ensure safety, there is a real therapeutic opportunity to help those students who might need emotional and/or educational support. In this Editorial, the mental health characteristics of students who make threats will be explored, with a call for a comprehensive and collaborative approach to assessing these threats and offering appropriate resources. Linking mental illness and school-related violence can inaccurately reinforce negative stigma and the myth that those with mental illness are violent.⁴ Most individuals with mental illness are not violent but, rather, are victims of violence. Although much of the current literature has focused on school threat assessments and individual profiles, few studies have considered the characteristics of those making threats in combination with treatment and educational intervention recommendations.