WAKEFIELD — Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth will host a full-day school safety conference on Tuesday, Dec. 9, at Minuteman High School in Lexington. The program, “Threat Assessment Teams: Best Practices in School Safety,” will bring together national experts and state leaders who focus on preventing school violence.
Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Pedro Martinez and Ted Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Field Office, will offer opening remarks.
Dr. Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist, director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, and faculty associate of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy, will lead a session on the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), which he developed. The CSTAG model is widely used in Massachusetts by school administrators, counselors, and public safety personnel. It relies on a structured, five-step process to evaluate the seriousness of threats and create interventions that maintain safety while supporting students.
Brian LeBlanc, Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI Boston Threat Response Squad and member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, will present “Preventing Targeted Violence: Identifying Warning Behaviors.” His presentation will cover current trends, how to distinguish impulsive statements from credible threats, and ways to manage threatening situations in schools.
David Solet, Esq., former Chief of the Cold Case Unit in the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, will introduce Daniel Bennett, Esq., Partner at Comprehensive Investigations and Consulting and CEO of Liberty Forensics, and Sudbury Police Chief Scott Nix. Their session will review lessons learned from a school-based homicide investigation, including warning signs that often precede serious acts of violence and strategies for responding to them.
About the Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth, Inc.
Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth, Inc. is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides training, fosters collaboration and develops programming to increase the health and safety of students. MPY is committed to bringing cutting-edge information and high-quality trainings to constituents and endeavors to provide solution-oriented, community-based, multi-disciplinary approaches to reducing and ideally eliminating risky behaviors for youth. MPY programming reaches nearly 6,000 educators per year in Massachusetts, spread across approximately 300 districts, with more than 190 webinars and over a dozen conferences and seminars.
Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth is governed by a Board of Directors made up of school superintendents, police and fire chiefs, and other community leaders who work closely with MPY staff to deliver this mission. To learn more, visit: massachusettspartnershipsforyouth.com.
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