tonight on "american history tv," a look at women's rights in the u.s. including a program from our 1968 america in turmoil series. it features former barner college president and author of "wonder women: sex, power and the quest for perfection" and syndicated columnist and author of the book "sex matters: how modern feminism lost touch with sex, love, and kplon sense." american history tv in prime time begins tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. next, a discussion with professors, physicals and lektive experts on gun violence and school safetied hosted by the national prevention science coalition.

this is two hours. all right. fields like we have a quorum. so let's begin. let me start by saying thank you to everybody for coming out today. i'm john roman, i'm the co-chair of the national prevention science coalition to improve lives along with denny fishfine at penn state university. i'd like to start by going through some thank yous to pull together this event. just a minute on the logistics of what we're going to do here. and then a minute on what the point of all this is and what we're trying to accomplish today. so let me start by thanking bobby scott who is our sponsor who has been a staunch advocate of evidence and evidence-based policy on capitol hill to his staff and to the house committee on foreign affairs for giving us

this lovely briefing room for our use today. we really appreciate that. i'd like to thank our sponsors penn state university, the universities of florida and south carolina, johns hopkins, pax, society for children and policy and practice, crime injustice research alliance and the institute. it takes a village to put on a briefing. and we're very, very grateful to our sponsors. i'd like to thank lauren hog and her family for coming today. i'd like to thank dr. julie phillips pollack for coming to day and being with us. i think i read in "time" magazine yesterday there is a wonderful profile of the parkland students and their efforts to organize this march and this movement. and the report i had a wonderful line. she walks into the offices of the parkland students and says, everything crackles with a sense of ferocious optimism. a sense of ferocious optimism.

so i'd like to thank you. i'd like to thank the panel for your leadership and grace and helping us to understand where we are and where we might go today. i want to make a special thank you to michael green to my right, masters of ceremony. the brain and leadership and the energy behind this event when parkland happened. we were all obviously as devastated as anyone else. when the march appeared on the horizon and the magnitude of this event came up and the opportunity to stand in front of congress and all of you and put out an evidence-based message for crime -- i'm sorry, for prevention science. i'm a crime scientist. these guys have a much broader lens. but michael is the one who said, look, we have to have this opportunity. we have to talk about what really works to prevent the next parkland. we can't just have knee jerk

responses to what is in front of us. way thank you for your leadership today. logistics, we're going to go 2:00 to 4:00. we're live on c-span. as you walk out to use the restrooms, give a little wave to your friends and family the ahome. we'll be having a reception in the basement room 2044 ground level, light refreshments and beer and wine. we hope you'll join us and continue the conversation we're about to start today. we hope you'll join us tomorrow on pennsylvania avenue for the march. the purpose is to promote science-based education of lawmakers. we're intentionally and purposefully focused on perhaps the hardest policy objective of all to achieve.

because the goals of prevention science are to prevent -- to make something visible invisible. to keep something from happening. to help a carefree child grow and be carefree instead of being the victim of abuse. to help educate and have an education that isn't thwarted by conflict at home or in the communities or conflict with the system or violence within the schools. to have health, not illness or harm. when you achieve these objectives, you cannot see what the alternative was that you avoided. and that's what makes this path so hard. that makes us the looking out for voiceless constituency. our voice is to give that constituency of prevention a voice. and we believe that science can help illuminate the path that prevention science promises to lead us to. so science alone is not enough. having a voice is not enough.

gandhi says among the seven deadly sins is science without humanity. and here we will strive for both science and humanity along with a sense of ferocious optimism. thank you all for coming to all the panelists and agreeing to come and speaking. this event, as john said, could not have occurred without a team of people. and i want to specifically thank the people from the national prevention science coalition, john to my left, bobby vasser, jess bear who has done an amazing job in helping to recognize this and bennie

fishbin who will be here later, the other co-director of npsc. we are here today not because of a killer killed. we're here because of the amazing outcry, 5:activism and courage of the students of marjorie douglas parkland high school, parents and rest of the nation. we often say that our fate as a nation rests with our young people. well, as a nation, despite these perilous times, i think we can all celebrate the path that young people are paving throughout the nation in the march tomorrow and certainly continuing in the months and years ahead. let's give a hand to the spirit and courage of our young people. now how many of you are marching

tomorrow? all right. so we have convened this briefing not to give personal opinions, not to spout as pundits. we're here for two reasons. first, we want to convey the thoughts and feelings of those who experience the rampage shooting at marjory stoneman douglas to humanize what happened through firsthand accounts. lauren and julie, i know that you're speaking as part of an on going healing process and i know that it takes he norenormous st to talk about the trauma you experienced. i don't think i could have done what you're doing. we're simply in awe of you and your friends, your peers, and relatives from parkland. second, we're here to present the science and evidence of a broad array of effective strategies designed to make our schools safer and promote student well-being.

i have been in the field of violence prevention now for more than 40 years. and i invite the best of the best scholar practitioners in the country all agree to speak without hesitation and without accepting or requesting speaking fees each are given 12 minutes to speak though each could hold our attention for hours. i hope can you join our speakers informally following the briefing. john mentioned we'll have beer and wine -- we're going to card. i do hope and believe that legislators, activists and all of us can benefit from what we're about to here. out of respect for the scholar practitioners we have assembled. i want to acknowledge all white men and women scholar as we're discussing and that was -- and

the event. as david hog, brother of lauren acknowledged, people of color and poor communities suffer from gun violence and vastly greating numbers than the white counter parts every day and every year and the senseless killings rarely reach the front pages of our newspapers and media. this has to be said. the same time, i do not in any way want to diminish the horrible tragedy that was parkland. i hope and believe we can work together as a nation with pride and our diversity and throughout all our communities to drastically reduce and discourage the gun violence in our country. and we have further ado, i want to begin to introduce and have our speakers speak.

some of you may have heard her brother speak. lauren, will you stand please? and a public schoolteacher, very important. these two women represent the strength of strong women, the strong women behind david and behind all men who walk in their footsteps. lauren? >> hello. i'm lauren hog. and i am a freshman at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida. on february 14th, i went through an unimaginable tragedy. everyone at my school did. but unfortunately now we know what it's like to go through it

and we can imagine what it's like. i was in my fourth period tv production class when it all started. we were getting ready for the end of the day. we were packing up. we were laughing with my friends. we were having a great valentine's day. we were right before this exchanging valentine's day gifts with each other. after finishing up and about to pack up, we heard the sound go off. and we thought it was weird because it was a fire drill. and earlier in the day we had another one. we assumed it was just another valentine valentine's day prank. as we took our time and packed up, we walked down the stairs and people were joking and laughing. we were taking our time. people packed up backpacks and took their time. when we got down to the stairs, that's when i realized something really was wrong. as i looked behind my school where the bus loop was where we were supposed to go for the fire drill, i saw kids running.

i saw kids running for their lives. and the look in their eyes is something that no one should ever have to see. the fact of the matter is, kids still thought it was a joke. they thought it was a joke because we were told at our school that we were going to have a code red drill with actors and blanks being fired. kids were laughing. while on the other side of my school campus, my friends were dying. we had no idea what was going on just a few feet away from us at that time. as i saw people running and people were joking, i said -- i grabbed my four closest friends and i said, guys, something is wrong here. we have to get back to class. they're like don't worry, lauren, it's just a drill. i was like, guys, i know something is wrong. and people always tell me to listen to my intuition. i never really listened to them.

but at this moment, something was telling me that something bad was happening. so i grabbed my friends and i took them and i said we need to get back to class. i don't care if this is a drill or not, we need to be prepared for whatever this could be. so as we ran back to our class, we had to shovel through kids taking their time walking back up the stairs. when we got back to class, i called my brother. and i said, david, what's going on here? something's wrong. why are people running and screaming? my brother was in another building and all he could mutter out is hide, lauren, hide. he just kept repeating, hide. i heard people screaming behind him. and i knew something was for sure wrong. whether i got back to my class, we hid in a corner and so many kids in my class still thought it was a joke. i grabbed my friends and we hid

behind the television set where nails were sticking out because they built it a few years ago. we shoveled in there and kids thought it was a joke, we began to get texts from our friends. one of the group chats that we were in, a lot of my friends were in the freshman building. and these are what the texts were like. it started off with one kid saying, what's that noise? why are people screaming? next thing you know, another kid saying, what's that noise? why does it sound like there are gun shots down my hallway? and the next thing you know, my friend was screaming and telling us that they love us and the shooter was shooting through their classroom door. and the next thing you know, we were hearing stories they were telling us that our friends were on the floor bleeding. and that's something that no child, nobody in america, no matter how old you are or where

you're from should have to go through. it's something that no one should have to go through. hearing reports while we're stuck in the corner of a dark room having our teacher cover the door that our friends were laying on the floor was probably one of the worst parts of that day. as we waited there in silence, one of our friends pulled up the news feed on their phone. while we were still hiding, we will no idea what was going on. the rumors coming through our phones and the snap chats we were getting from our friends who were in the freshman building of the shooter shooting through his door is just something that you can never imagine unless you were there and saw what we saw. as we sat there, the look in people's eyes, i was holding people that i never talked to hands and every single person was telling each other how much they love each other. i never realized in my life until that moment how much

something as little as saying i love you can make a difference. and now that i realize, throughout that whole day, it was a great day before this. it was probably the most happy i've ever seen any kids at douglas. everybody is saying i love you. i realized what struck me is that even i right before this, i was saying i love you to my friends. that could have been the last time i said i love you to my friends or heard i love you from my friends. and for some of my friends, it was their last time hearing that. as we sat there in the darkness and we heard reports coming in about my friends being on the floor and teachers being dead on the floor, we were scared. we heard reports that there were multiple shooters. there were so many rumors going around. as we sat there, we heard someone come down our hallway. we didn't know who it was. but in that moment, all i could think about is my family. and people say that your life flashes before your eyes, but it really does. we didn't know who it was.

kids crowded behind the tv set and started trampling all over us. as i sat there, i just -- it's nothing. i'm 14. i shouldn't have to think about getting shot in my school, a place that should be safe for every child in america. but in that moment all i could think about is getting shot and what it would be like and things i haven't said to my family. having to text good-bye to your parents and that you love them is the worst thing imaginable. after about three hours of waiting in the darkness not knowing what was going on, we heard our door get kicked open. we didn't know who it was. but thankfully it was the s.w.a.t. team coming to save us. when they came to get us, they made us line up in a row. as we walked out, we had so many police officers and s.w.a.t. members pointing guns at us and having to hold my hands above my head in my own school and knowing that something was wrong in just a building right next to

ours, it was horrific. walking outside that school and being told to run for our lives with our hands above our heads was horrible. once i got out, the thing was it was almost like a movie. everything seemed to glow. in your life, i never realize that things could physically glow and sound is obsolete. things seem so extreme. my friends screaming, people not knowing what was going on. our school had literally become a battle ground. it was silent. kids didn't know what was going on. kids were shell shocked because we just had a bomb basically dropped on our school. the worst part of that whole entire day was getting home because growing up i always, like, imagine and had a dream about seeing my friends or myself on tv some day, like oh, my god. that will be so cool. maybe i'll be on disney channel.

i thought it would be would so cool. but getting home that day and seeing my friends' faces on tv became my worst nightmare. collapses on the cold hard floor of my house knowing that my friends were either missing or dead on the floor of my school where i usually laugh with them was the worst part of that day. and that is why we need to do something. because the things that i went through, the things that my friends went through having to walk over our friends' bodies, no one in america or anywhere in this world should have to go through that. i would just like to add, as part of the never again movement, i would like to elaborate on something that hasn't really been that public like in the news and stuff. so i would like to talk about meantal health in our education system. we need mental health curriculum in our schools.

we are forced to take sexual education and physical education. but we're never asked or even gotten the option to take mental health education. and i find that absolutely absurd. if anything, it is as prevalent and important as any other type of health. and if we were forced to take this, no matter you liked it or not, it could help you. whether you -- whether it be yourself and you see the signs in yourself and you go to seek out help or you see the signs in someone else and you go and talk to them. you walk up to them and talk to them or go to a counsellor and say i think they're having a hard time. if one person in america could prevent something from like this by learning about mental health, that could make a world of difference. it could save people's lives.

one thing i would also like to say is most schools are not addressing the schools social, emotional andment mental needs the students. more schools are concerned about our standardized test scores than ourment mental health stat. so i did a little math at our school. according to the online website, we have 18 people in our counselling department. as of 2015-2016, there were 3,158 students. that means for every single guidance counsellor, there is 175 students. we have no outlet at our school to talk to anybody and this is schools across america. so how if you were going to talk to somebody are you supposed to -- how would our guidance counsellors have time to meet with 175 students. i went to my guidance counsellor the other day.

she didn't know my name. we need more therapists and more trained social workers at our schools to talk with us. and i think when that happens, that's when the real change is going to occur. whether people learn about whatmentwhat mental health is in our school and we get rid of the sticky stigma surrounding every type ofmentof mental health. thank you. >> wow. thank you so much for sharing that. you are going to speak after lauren. so ron is a professor the at usc. somewhat miraculously a consensus emerged in our field that the best way to reduce

aggression and violence in our schools is to create a culture of caring. ron studies on climate and school safety include thousands of schools and millions of students in countries across the globe. he has written and spoken with grace and intelligence about how to create caring schools. he will share some of his thoughts and findings with us. ron? >> i don't know if that's to say thank you for being here that sound. i want to first thank you. we were talking a little bit through lunch and in terms of the school is still very hardened right now with helicopters and police officers and so the message that we have here is not something that is done. it's still on going even at this school. i wish we could have those folks

listening to you right now and maybe they are through c-span. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for that. i'm going to read the first part and then hopefully the power point will go through. but i'm a bit emotional. so as you heard, we are amid a national battle about the vision of what our schools should be. how to create citizens of a society that are a plus human beings in addition to a plus students as you so wisely said. how to create a learning and thriving opt mall invest where interactions between the students, teachers and parents create a better union within our schools and for the future of our fractured society. indeed, we are debating not only what we want our schools to be but also what we want our society to be. our students continually put forth the voices of truth, of the present as well as of the future.

again, thank you. in this context, we gather here today to focus on the voice of science, specifically asking how can we protect students of our country from feeling unsafe, feeling victimizeded physically and mentally injured or as we have seen too often from death while at school. the fact that shootings or death happen at higher rates in other settings doesn't impact our resolve to reduce and eliminate intentional and unintentional harm and death in schools where students are mandated to attend. that is a major reason why we're here. if you go to the next slide, please. we have two visions of our schools. one vision of our nation's school safety believes that the path for lasting safety comes from welcoming, caring, and supportive schools. that the focus on school safety, social emotional learning and community is in addition to great academics. this vision also advocates for humane social supports,

institutional linkages and kplun community resources for those students studying with mental health soshlgs obstacles, family and community strife. we have somebody doing that firsthand here every day. thank you. another vision, focuses mainly on the shooting and after the shooting itself, using tools that originated in law enforcement, prison architecture, military strategies, and a more restrictive approach that aims to protect students from extreme forms of murder under firearms. next slide. but this is not just an opinion or a societiable debate. there is decades of well conducted, large scale studies conducted from all over the world that strongly support one vision and not the other. next slide. there is multiple comprehensive reviews covering hundreds of international studies, large

scale epidemiological studies, i've done many of them with my colleagues, and we found in these studies done over decades in many different countries that when schools have positive climates with intergrated social emotional learning and supports as just requested, they actually have improved students isolation on campus, all sorts of bullying, verbal, physical, sexual harassment and the relationships between students and teachers and students and students in a natural way, not just a therapeutic way. it is healthy and helps these students thrive. our research from all over the world and some of our samples have millions of students in them show when you have a very good climate and strong social emotional measures that are intergrated into the dna of the school, not just programs from the outside but what the principal believes, what the students believe and wlat students are doing that you actually see weapons reductions as well.

weapon abuse, being threatened by a weapon and even knowing about a weapon on school grounds. next slide. we find that when these schools and the principals and teachers are behind it and it becomes part of the dna, what i call central air rather than window air conditioning, then you actually have all these vulnerable groups that have separate programs for them, all of them have reductions and all the risk factors that they were talking about violence. we see the reductions also in substance abuse and a whole other array of things that we've been looking at. there is true for immigrant groups, lbgtq and military and veteran connected students, students in vulnerable population f populations in other countries and we have studies in right now that we can see the reductions in. next slide, please. but when you try to change

culture through large scale interventions, again, when the scl and the climate is intergrated into the school, you actually see positive things actually, not all the reduction of negative things. you see communities being built, empowerment, connectedness that goes beyond fixing a problem. we see in the most recent reviews that academics are better. one of our reasons showed not just violence but mathematics got better. these are connected with each other. and most importantly, the most recent work that we've done shows that it decreases inequality by reducing the achievement gap. so there is a lot of value to these kind of early prevention social and emotional. so what happens whether you intergrate? go to the next slide. after seven years, there is 145

schools that were the part of a funded grant working with military connected kids. but we also had a whole school approach. 35% reduction in flifz, guns, and other threats on school grounds. 40% reduction of students actually seeing a weapon on school grounds or knowing about it. and a 44% reduction gang affiliation. i want to spend a little time talking about seeing a weapon on school grounds. usually people say that is not a climate issue. but if we have 20% to 30% of kids in california, depending on the last 20 years actually report that and we look at those xool schools, we have the dwrat for all 10,000 schools in california, then we see that that actually impacts climate.

knowing that there is a weapon. that's not a separate issue. knowing that there is a weapon on campus makes you feel differently about your peers, about how you feel about the school, about going. and that becomes a very important climate issue. the way we have done this in israel -- next slide, please -- is we have taken a national public health strategy and i'm suggesting that we do the same thing here. we have had -- there is some book flyers i put out that we captured all the work done from around the world and put it into real regular language so that people can pick it up and use it in schools or school districts. our work is actually based on student voice and empowerment. we use the surveys as a basis from the student voice to bring the data back to each of the 3,000 schools in israel and the 145 schools that we had here to hear what the students think. we actually then bring the teachers voice back to the teachers and actually have what the teachers and the principals

and we've done the same with yard aids and cafeteria workers to build upon this. then the resources are actually matched to those various schools. depends on the needs and desires and cultural background and past history. each school guess not a one side fits all but something catered very specifically to their grounds. next slide, please. so, for example, in california as i mentioned, if you just take the statistic of between 20 and 30% of students say they have seen weapons on school grounds, we actually know what each of those schools are right now. we can actually figure out which ones are high and which ones we have. we've looked at it. and we can come up with instead of just targeting students or people, we can actually look at schools that have very, very high rates, low climate, and actually provide more resources, provide more care, provide more training on welcoming, give the students voice and empowering and move up like we did in chile and israel.

i'm talking about doing this at scale. even though it has to happen one student at a time, it also can happen at scale with the data that we have. one thing that we found in our work both here and in israel and in chile right now is we have to pay special attention maybe to the other speakers will speak about this a little bit more, to students and teachers who have obsessions with arsenals. this is am coming up over and over again in our quantitative and equally take theive work and those are particularly red flags. but what we're advocating for again, not kicking everyone out the way our current hard line is looking, but actually providing supports from a very young age and going on for a long time. last slide. just want to raise this particular issue of alternative schools. because when a child or youth brings a weapon to school grounds and threatens others, there is many things that can happen in terms of working.

but when this happens multiple times, we have a whole system of alternative schools that the climate and resources around those have not been looked at very carefully. we just begun to look at them. i can tell you right now the climate does not look very good for the california schools i'm looking at and they also supports are not very strong. and those things apply especially to this group that has been excluded from public schools for these kinds of reasons and we have entire systems and special ed, doj schools, kplunlt schools that have been unattended to and nekted. i -- neglected. i'd like to make sure we stop this gap. one more slide. i'm almost done. everything i said here is in the method and the mapping and bullying book and all proceeds are donated to anti-bullying efforts as with all our prior books. and next slide. and this is the welcoming become. this is how you create good climates and how you welcome. actually a welcoming environment, particularly for students in transition. and final slide and then i'll be done. i would like to thank you,

actually one more. and there is resources. these are extra resources if you need them between the books and these and the other speakers who should be in good shape. again, i would like to thank you. you're the reason that you're here. it's your activism and voice and yours too. i appreciate that. >> thank you so much, ron. david osser. i'm confident that each one of us can remember times in our school years where we experienced trauma, depression, disappointment or what we thought at the time was failure that would irrepairbly doom our futures. it's not hard to identify who is going through your period at those times. it is important to nonjudge mentally inquire and provide guidance, to help him or her move through these times.

david led a federal expert panel and identified these items and how to respond to them will help us to understand how. david? >> thank you very, very much. i also want to thank lauren and ron. you don't think i'm on. okay. i am on. okay. i'll talk louder. i would like to thank lauren and ron. in work that i've done in mental health and in climate as well as in early warning signs over the past 20, 30 years, i've learned more always from young people than anybody else. and in a book that i have coming out next year written before the events, you know, i talked about the most undetected resources in our schools are our young people. but i've learned so much more in the last few weeks but also have been learning from black lives matter and the young people who have been really talking about these issues and helping us

understand much more. and so i'm keeping with my slides. i just added a few because i really learned from you, lauren. okay. so in the one hand, schools are -- first slide. thank you very much, john. schools are relatively safe place. and they're well produced -- positioned to reduce the likelihood of aggression and violence. but schools are contained places. what lauren is talking about is actually possible. we can make schools safe. and as i'll talk in main, it's not just physically safe, it's emotionally safe. it's identity safe. i mean that does require as you heard from both ron and lauren access to social and emotional learning andmental health supports. and as we talk right now, it also makes choices, it's how we allocate resources. there may be some places where one needs to invest some money in security personnel but oftentimes that's at the expense of another counsellor. of another mental health person,

of a prevention intervention. it's very important to understand that these things are connected. so schools can be made safer by developing a capacity to reduce the likelihood of aggression and violence while addressing student and staff needs for emotional, physical, and identity safety. and what we know is the fact that there are early warning signs which understood in context can signal that a child or youth is troubled and needs support. i have the privilege in 1998 in response to shootings that are not much different from right now other than the fact that weaponry is much more sophisticated and other things like the fact that people can experience these horrible events in real time and be further traumatized. the government pulled together an expert panel to really try to identify what are warning signs. and the work we did there is not very different from work we're doing with the apa and things like that. and at some point this work ought to be updated.

but what we know now is enough to actually as lauren said, head off these problems. and we're particularly able to do it and i'll talk about this whether we're in the type of caring supportive environment that ron's been talking about. these early warning signs must be assessed and addressed in a culturally and develop mentally appropriate manner and in a way that minimizes harms and maximizes benefits. because any time you intervene, you also have a risk of harm. next slide, please. so safety. oftentimes we think about physical safety and we think about that moment. but if i think about valentine's day and i think about your class being beforehand, i also think about whether do you feel emotionally safe. if i think about somebody's experience trauma in his or her life, whether do people feel psychologically safe? and if someone is different in

any way, when do they feel identity safe? and if we go to black lives matter and what young people are talking about, whethn do you fe like you're being treated in a fair and equitable manner? and when are you safe from not just short term problems but long-term problems, perhaps health problems that can happen when the cafeteria is unsafe or you're afraid to go to the wash room? next slide, please. if we want to use warning signs and i think we can, schools need to develop the capacity to identify, to assess and to respond to warning signs in a manner that reduces their incidents of problems, the amplification, making them louder and bigger problems, and the impact of those problems. in lauren's class and school, i

think the connections that you talked about what we know are also supportive. i mean as horrible as everything you have and i can only guess what we know from science is that when you have a parent, when you have friends, i'm going to speed up, then what you -- that just buffers the effect of horrific things. we want to avoid them and also have the supports. as i said this can be best done in a caring manner that actually to go to the next slide has three tiers. it's what we do universally for everybody. it's the care that ron was talking about. it's social and motional learning for everybody. it's support for teachers and go robust equitable instruction. and then what we do for people who are at some level of need and warning signs can help us if we do it right. and if students know about that, that can help us as well.

because often they see their friends in way that's other people don't see. but they have to trust adults if that's going to happen as well as know what happens. and then at the same time, there are some people who are at higher levels of risk who actually need much more intensive interventions and there are some people and they will talk about it after me who are xiblting behaviors that really require immediate threat assessments or suicide assessments because we cannot wait no matter what. and what i would just want to add quickly that what we also know is that if you do these things, you don't only make schools safer, you also do 1, 2, 3 innings -- things where you make schools more academically productive and help people become more healthy in the long run. and my research is very consistent with ron's in terms of that fact. it's in rural areas and the u.s. and we see the same things. these things are not a tradeoff.

the more safe young people feel in class, the more safe teachers are, the more people can handle these issues, the more able they're to engage in deeper learning and more likely they're able to attend schools. but when we do this and when we use warning signs, we have to make sure we minimize unintended consequences. for example, suspension and expulsion, removing people. punishing people. the criminalization of things and there is an era here in terms of the slide. we're on the next slide anyway. so i'm sorry. okay. and i see an error there. the criminalization of behavior rather than providing people with the services they need. the behaviors can create in '98 we learned from both adults and students a conspiracies of silence. the language was. why should i tell adults something when i know something when i can't trust them to do something in a responsible way? and at the same time, it wastes resources. doing things that could be handled preventatively and

providing more resources for counsellors. next slide, please. okay. so quickly, what are these warning signs? remember here, any one sign at any one moment is nothing more than a signal. you're looking at someone who through his life exhibited warning signs. it's the things together. but excessive feelings of isolation of being alone, excessive feelings of rejection, being a victim of violence, feeling picked on and persecuted, low school interest and academic and poor academic foremanance and changes that lead to. this the expression of violence in writing and drawing, uncontrolled anger, a history of discipline problems. patterns of impulsive and chronic hitting, intimidating bullying behaviors, history of violent and aggressive behavior, intall rance of differences and prejudicial at udz, the use of drugs and alcohol, affiliation with gangs, inappropriate access to and possession of abusive firearms. serious threats of violence which are also an imminent

warning sign. these are not just my list. and it goes to the expert panel. next slide, please. alone all of them are signals but if we want to do them right, do it in a way that we make sure we don't do harm and stig my ties, we understand what we're seeing within the context including the fact that these may be set up by behaviors on the part of the school and we -- and schools have their own warning signs. we need to avoid stereotypes and control for the effects of implicit bias. we have to understand that students, you know, typically exhibit multiple warning signs and no one sign alone is sufficient. we need to assess before acting and that requires some mental health expertise. we don't want to use the signs of a checklist an we don't want to confuse early warning signs with imminent warning signs or signs that really require immediate action. but the early warning signs are to provide students with help.

next slide, please. so principles -- no, we did that already. i think. all right. yes. okay. so i think question go to the next slide. please. okay. so let's now think about where we can intervene if there are signs. i think no matter what, a piece or a place to intervene is the student. we want to build her or his social emotional skills. if the student has an anger problem, we want to equip them with skills to deal with that anger. and the more, you know, what we now know is people's social emotional and cognitive skills are so interrelated and so do we work in that area in one area helps things in other areas like academics. at the same time, what we also know is that who i am is not just a product of myself, it's also the people around me, the experiences i have. so it may be we need to

intervene in my classroom with my teacher, with my friends and with my family. and remember, interventions ought to be supportive not harmful. we also need to think about the entire school environment and what ron talked about and as we'll hear i think in other places later on from daniel among others is we have to think about societal factors. the access to guns in our society, the messages that people receive in our society really do matter. and last slide, please. that is the next slide. no, that was the last slide. okay. let me end by saying we have decades now of research. and we have decades of successful federal interventions which when implemented with quality and when implemented at

scale actually make a difference. examples, you know, authorized by congress were the safe school healthy student grantees, local and then state. and and i have graphic that was just produced regarding impacts that i'm happy to share with people. examples are the safe and supportive school grants that went to 11 states across the country to use climate to try to improve outcomes. and the local evaluations that were done of each of the 11 states show that in all cases when people were intentional in types of ways that ron were talking about, that they did things like improve attendance in some states, improve academics, reduce incidents that made people feel unsafe. so this is not just trying to do new things. i think just in the case of the warning signs, we have the accumulation of work that really provides us with messages which

really suggest and indicate that we can make our society and schools safer. and that doing that really requires that three-tiered model i talked about. it requires coordination of people within those three tiers. it involves actively listening to and using the voices of young people. it requires being culturally competent and culturally responsive. and it requires a vision that we really got from lauren in terms of our aspirations. what every one of our children and youth in our society deserve is a school where they can be expanded, where they can deliver collective resilience, not just individual resilience, where they can thrive together and learn together with equity. thank you very much.

[ applause ] >> thank you, david. next i want to introduce dr. dewy cornell. i remember in the aftermath of columbine now nearly two decades ago, social scientists ran the question, asking how we can apply threat assessment principles to schools without increasing rates of student arrest and expulsion and at the same time promote safety. dewy's group developed a model for school base threat assessment has been evaluated and being used throughout the country. >> and i'll even turn on my mic. again thank you all for being here and coming on this porno cages. i want to talk about evidence

based school threat assessment and talk about a model that my colleagues and i developed about 18 years ago that we've been doing on research on since then and potential values not just preventing violence in schools but preventing violence in general. main points i want to make is first of all our decisions about school safety have to be based on a careful analysis of the facts and not just be driven by fears and emotions however important they are. and to recognize that school violence is a small part of a much larger problem of gun violence. it would be a terrible mistake to assume that the only problem that we have is in our schools. and, finally, i want to say that we need to place much more emphasis on prevention than on security, and one prevention strategy is evidence based school threat assessment. now, certainly school shootings have had a tear kbli traumatic

effect on the survivors, their family members, and all of us as a society who have had to witness this and think about and contemplate it. but one of the effects of these shootings is to convince that we need to turn our schools into fortresses, that we must spend billions of dollars on security measuresment and what i want to suggest to you, that's missing the total picture, the larger picture and can lead us in the wrong way. we have really two processes going on, from trauma a and which is important and must be cared for for the individuals such as lauren with us so bravely today. but we also have to have a prob process of stepping back from the trauma and saying what is the most effective efficient thing that we can do to keep our young people safe and keep them safe not only in school, but out of school. i'm sure many people have seen the charts like this that tally up how many shootings we've had in schools, and it's horrendous to think there has been over 300

shootings sin the sandy hook shooting. but i think this chart leaves out something very important which is how many shootings we've had outside of schools as well. and if you do a little digging with cdc national statistics data you'll find like me that in the last five years we have averaged over 100,000 shootings every year. dweef had half a million shootings in which someone was killed or injured outside of our schools. and from that perspective for every shooting in a school, we have 1600 shootings outside of schools. so i'm interested in keeping our young people safe in our schools, but also in our communities. we average about 22 young people killed at school every year over the past 20 years. but we average over 1,000 young people who were killed outside of school. even if we spent the billions of dollars that business people

tell us it would take to make our schools absolutely impregnantable that would stop only less than 10% of shootings taking place. let me suggest to you if we put a policeman in every single school we may stop one shooting in one building but if we put another counselor in that school we have the potential to help young people before they go to violence and help shootings all across our community. the real problem is gun violence, not school violence. when we look at where gun violence occurs, where homicides occur, some colleagues and i looked at fbi statistics on where homicides occur across the state, schools are actually one of the safest places in our community. and we certainly want to keep our kids safe in school and make

our schools safer. but let me point out that restaurants have ten times as many shootings, homicides as do our schools. so anyone who recommends that we need to arm our teachers, logically should be advocating that we need to arm our cooks and servers too and put our metal detectors up in the entrance of our schools. because those places are ten times more dangerous than our schools. we have to do more than just security. we cannot turn every public space, every open area into a fortress. after sandy hook shooting the business folks told us they spent about -- schools spent about $5 billion on security measures. plainly, that wasn't enough, and maybe it would never be enough. we need to recognize that when that $5 billion goes into security measures, school budgets are not elastic, that money has to come from somewhere, and what we often see, and what i've seen in

school systems is they have to cutback on their student support systems, anti-bullying programs and counseling services because the money is going to security measures. the other negative reaction we have to the fear of school violence is increase in zero tolerance. suspension policies, ex-include narry discipline that has documented negative effects in driving up juvenile dropout rates, juvenile court rates, and of course the school to prison pipeline. we need to be very careful that we don't react to school shootings by making the problem worse by using exclusionary discipline that drives up our dropout rate and our rate of kids becking involved in crime.

we need to prevent shootings instead of simply preparing for them. security measures are largely preparation for a shooting. but we need to think about stopping shootings. and prevention means to keep something from happening. so we need to think that prevention has the start long before there is a gunman at your door, long before there is a gunman in your parking lot. who is that person before he picked up the gun? who is that person when they were in high school, middle school, elementary school, and what could we have done differently to have diverted them from that pathway to violence? well, 20 years ago, actually law enforcement, fbi and secret service working with the u.s. department of education recommended the use of threat assessment in schools. well, this was a very unfamiliar concept. we weren't really sure what it meant. but a group of colleagues and i as well as others around the country have been busy trying to adapt this to applying it to schools. not originally what it was

originally in law enforcement for assassins and terrorists, it's nor kids. we know kids make threats a lot, mostly they don't mean them, they are in developmental phase, immature, but we know some threats are they are us. so we need a process and threat assessment in schools is problem solving approach to violent prevention that involves both assessment and intervention, working with young people who have made a threat or seem distressed in some way that raises concern about violence. it begins when people care about one another in the school. when family members, friends, teachers recognize that someone is unhappy, alienated, withdrawn, resentful, maybe engages in some type of threatening statement, that a threat assessment team can look at the situation, assess the seriousness of the threat, and decide what kind of appropriate interventions, actions supports ought to be implemented.

we know that threat assessment has to begin with identifying someone who is in need, who is in distress, maybe who has made a threat, and then evaluating recognizing that all threats are not equally serious. we don't want to overreact to students threats that are not serious. and then follow-through with intervention. well, we developed the set of threat assessment guidelines and field tested them afrn disseminated them and have 17 years and 11 studies evaluating outcomes. we know schools need to avoid overreact go to threats that are not serious. probably the chief example of that is this poor young boy who chewed his pop top into a gun and suspended him. only thing dangerous about him is what he ate. we also have to avoid the

opposite error of under reaction. we have seen more school shootings have been averted than have taken place. and we know that they have been prevented largely because someone came forward and said i'm concerned about something he said or did that raised concern. and there was a school -- there were school authorities who listened and responsive who took the threats seriously who investigated it and took appropriate action. in threat assessment we tried to determine why the student made a threat so that we can prevent it from being carried out. now, i mentioned that we've done a lot of studies, i'll spend the next three hours going through each of our studies, and i'm sure i'll have your rapt attention for them. i'll be happy to send you copies any of these that are available from the website virginia youth

website, just going google us. across our studies, 99% of threats are not carried out. the 1% carried out involve no shooting, stabbings or homicides, they were fights, they were assaults with no serious injury. we also know that schools using threat assessment don't administer harsh consequences except in extreme cases only one% result in a student being expelled. most current study found there were no differences between black, white, and historic students in rate they were suspended or expelled. they also use counseling more often and have a positive school climate. (cell phone ringing). >> that's great music.

but just save it. i guess that means i'm nearing the end of the time when they start playing the music for you. >> well, at any rate, let me wrap up by saying that after the sandy hook shooting, virginia actually mandated threat assessment in all of the schools. we found it can be adopted but it can be a process that minimizes criminalizes stud entsds and can provide help to students. all of this and a larger perspective on youth violence prevention is contained in an 8 point plan that many of us who are here devised after the parkland shooting. and this plan has gun control, it has school climate improvement, it has threat assessment and improved mental health services for young people. you can obtain this from our website. i won't read through all of it. my concluding points are, first of all, that school violence is

a small part of a much larger prob recommend that we need to address. schools are much safer than the public actually believes and safer than it feels. but that threat assessment is one important tool, one of many, that we can use in schools to respond to student threats and prevent violence both in schools and in communities. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. david. >> i've known david since his days at the yale child center years ago. i can tell you david knows through experience far reaching insight and scientific study anyone else i know how to effectively, therapeutically and humanistically respond to school crisis. david. >> thank you. if you can put the first slide up. so i wanted to begin by just

acknowledging that there are actually are a very wide range of reactions that may be seen after a school shooting. i think most appreciated by the general public is post-traumatic disorders but that's not all you will see. for those children lost someone they care about, bereavement might be most important. and i remember going to a school and one man had the unfortunate experience both were killed but he was injured. as i talked with him in his home i asked him why he wasn't receiving counseling. he looked at me and said i had trauma symptoms but i wasn't aware what was happening during the shooting and those problems went away. but he said that's better now. and he said i don't want to go and talk about the shooting anymore. so then i asked him why did you leave school. and he said it didn't feel right

to be there without her. he was on a date with a girl he planned to marry. and being in school without his girlfriend didn't seem right to him. and i looked at him and said well maybe you are grieving the death of your girlfriend. and he looked surprised and said that's it. and if someone is willing to talk to me about that, i'll go for counseling now. i don't want to talk about the shooting anymore. so the issue is it isn't just one set of reactions. additional reactions should be anticipated. crisis is generally followed by a cast aid of second larry losses and stressors. while this is clearly evident after a natural disaster, i've seen it in school shootings as well. so just as an example after a school shooting there may be a drop in enrollment in the school for a number of reasons. students may transfer out because of discomfort and either returning or remaining in the school. but students who are doing well may also transfer out just because the teachers and other students who were struggling may be impacting their academic career. future students and their families are often reluctant to

join the school. and the drop in enrollment then has a financial impact. the issue is budget in school is based on the number of students and when they have less students less money. i've seen property value drop in these towns and that leads to drop in income from taxes that come from property as well as the inability for them to pass tax levees. and what then occurs is schools have fixed ebbs pens so what do they cut. they cut the supportive services at a time when schools are most struggling. and you can see how that can lead to downward spiral. but not everything that just follows the crisis that have to worry about, but also things that preceded. loss even if it's completely unrelated to the event. i got a phone call after the shooting in concert in a school in las vegas, they said we looked for this and found t we were fortunate none of our students were there, but we had

a student sobbing because she's afraid her mother is going to die of cancer. so the issue is you uncover other concerns in students and slide. unfortunately there is a lot there to uncover. trauma and losses common in lives of student t 1 out of 20 children will experience the deaf parent. and 9 out of 10 death of close relative or friend by the time they complete high school. now in contrast to this high prevalence of loss in the lives of children, training of classroom educators in this area is extremely limited. less than 10% of educators receive even a single lesson on how to support grieving children. and educators this is the main reason they aren't willing to provide support. they are afraid they will say the wrong thing so they opt instead to say nothing. but saying nothing says a lot to

children, says you are unaware, unconcerned, or unwilling or unable to help. we also need to though i don't want to fault the educators. we need to recognize school educators are impacted by the events as much as the students and often more so. i remember talking to supervisor ipd of the school system that had a bus accident death of students two years prior. as he was talking to me he became tearful and looked at me and said you know it still bothers me that these kids died and asked me maybe i should retire. and i lubed at him and said if you ever wake up one morning and you don't care if the kids die have you to retire. the issue is that's a pretty low bar in my opinion to be leader in school system. i think it's important that we continue to provide support to students and staff until the recovery is completed. and that may take many months and often takes years. but the time frame for federal funding for recovery, whether

from the u.s. department of ed or fema isn't aligned with the time line for recovery and the grarnts often end too soon. the amount of funding is often less than the cope of need. new york city schools conducted needs assessment of students attending grades 4 through 12 throughout all boroughs in new york city, about six months after 9/11. and they found that approximately one of 4 students surveyed reported symptoms consistent with at least one mental health disorder. that included ptsd, panic attacks and a gore phobia. that suggested that more than a quarter of a million students in that school system alone needed counseling. what was also concerning was 87%, nearly 9d out of 10 students reported at least one trauma symptom that was still persisting six months after 9/11. and of note, the majority of students that were self reporting symptoms and also reported daily impairment in

their functioning also reported they had never received norine sought mental health treatment in the school despite the fact there was free counseling available in every school in the city through funding from fema. so we can't rely on individual treatment services alone to address the broad range of needs for supportive services after a school shooting. school response is simply not the same as providing individual evaluation referral and treatment to everyone in a school building. after school shooting you really need to look at other a proeshsz to provide additional support to children beyond a traditional mental health service model. teachers, school administrators and staff can have profound impact by providing compassionate support as well as identifying students who may benefit from additional mental health service. the preferred model is to educate and train all professionals in a child ease

community building their capacity to respond long-term. now, we have seen ex-elect examples of strength among students and staff. and i had opportunity meeting with staff and others in broward county. but i want to point out no matter how many resilient they are, it doesn't mean they are not experiencing to staff, but they have the capacity to cope with the trauma loss they are experience and they need our help as well. and although resilient students have done an excellent job to come forward to represent the needs of their community and their fears, we alpeers, we als know they are not representative. and some members who are particularly struggling to the point they cannot even speak about it. and they look and see other examples of kids who appear to be doing much better, and that can even add further to their distress in the sense they are not competent. if you go to the next slide. this training though has not

been a priority and teacher preparation, nor in professional development. instead only aftermath of a major event. i remember being put in touch with parent and educator in the new town community about three or four weeks after the shooting at sandy hook and he had a child attending sandy hook and struggling and wanted some advice on what he could do. so i spent about an hour on him on the phone that evening, and at the end of the call he said i really want to thank you for this. this is the first advice i've gotten that's practical that i can actually use. he said i don't want to be judgmental but i want to ask why wasn't there someone in the community brought in sooner to help give me this advice. and i said there was. shooting happened on friday. on monday morning i did in service for all of the staff and the school system.

you were either home with your family which i completely understand stad or more likely you were there or don't remember a word i said but i went over the same things in the phone call. we need to recognize prepared nid not just preparing to crisis but also preparing to recover and we have to invest the resources. and as already mentioned these skills tan strategies are not just important in communities such as new town, connecticut or parkland, florida, after these events i heard how shocking it was violence could occur in communities such as that. and reminded me of a presentation in urban community known for gang violence. the i talked how communities cumulative loss and violence, the children don't get used to the death of their peers. although they may stop seeking support from adults because they have come to believe that the adults in their community are either unable or unwilling to stop, prevent, or help them cope

with these events. and this falsely leads people to believe they are not impacted anymore. one of the staff spoke up and said i didn't understand the community. and that here it was normal for children to be part of gangs. and then he added in this community it's normal for children to murder other children. and i looked at him and i said that is never normal. and once we call it normal, it means we stop doing something about it. and i said i'm not going to be okay about that. i don't think any of us should. so, yes, i think we should be outraged that a school shooting happened in these communities, but we should be outraged when it happens anywhere in our community or in our country. so the solutions we seek need to be broadly relevant and they need to be applied in all kplunts in our country. so one of the recommendations of the national commission on children in disasters was that congress and the education department should award funding to states to implement and evaluate training and professional development programs to teach educators

basic skills in providing support to grieving students and students in crisis, and they will see those students every day in their classes. and also statewide requirements related teacher certification and recertification. and similar recommendation was also in the final reports of the disaster mental health sub kmeel of the bio board as well as sandy hook advisory commission. this training for teachers and other school personnel should address bereavement on children and their learning. some of the likely reactions they may see in themselves and others in the school. and most importantly practical strategies for providing psychological first aid, brief supportive services, bereavement support, and academic a come s accommodations. the goal is to create a supportive environment. so i want to end my comments by highlighting one free resource

available. the new york life foundation and center for school cry cities and bereavement ten of the lead tg organizations to form the coalition to support grieving students all with the goal of remedy school professionals to ensure no child has to grieve in isolation. this is a listing of the ten lead organizations that were the founding members of the coalition representing both teachers major teachers units, school administrators, principals, superintendents and school counselors, nurses and social workers. but if you go to the next slide, there are 30 more organizations that have also endorsed the material and have added their logos to it includes the americana academy of pediatrics, boys and girls club of america, and many more. if you go to the next slide we have 30 more that have joined us. so the coalition is up to 60 organizations. so i just -- there are some

materials i left here for the coalition. i just want to add they are publicly available. they are free of charge. you can go et them at grieving students.org. wide ranging materials and also see some materials about our center that provides free technical support and consultation. so thank you. [ applause ] >> daniel webster. in these times of great division and ac crow mony, it's hard to find someone with the wisdom and knowledge to balance a nonpartisan manner available scientific knowledge with the rights enumerated in the second amendment and with the single minded goal to promote the safety and well-being of all. david is one such person. david. >> daniel. i'm sorry. we have too many davids here. >> thank you very much. it's an honor to be part of this

panel. i'm here to talk about i think there are a number of reasons why we are here, but i don't think we would be here if we didn't have a problem with guns in the united states. and dewy cornell really set the table for me quite well, noting that mostly we are safe in our schools. we need to make everyone safe in all places. and most of the data i have, actually, all of the data i have, will not be specific to schools, but i think the concepts are transferable within school or externally. i first want to point out through this slide how abnormal we are when you compare the united states to other high income western democracies.

this is simply plotting the ratio of our homicide rates involving young people versus that of the average, waited average of all these other nations. the yellow bar is our over all homicide rate, which in the 5 to 14 group is a little more than four times higher than the average of these other high income countries. in the 15 to 24 age group, it's 14 times higher. 14 times higher. the next two bars, red bar being the firearm homicide rate with guns and gray bar all other means. you can see from this slide what the issue is. our rates for homicides involving 5 to 14-year-olds with

firearms nearly 20 times higher and nearly 50 times higher for ages 15 through 24. we do not have unusually high rates of mental illness in our population among our young. we don't have unusually high rates of bullying. what we have is unusually high rates of access, ready access to lethal weaponry. next slide, please. that's also evidented in this next slide. 85% if you look at victims of gun homicides, high school age, 14-18, 88% die with firearms. there is a real racial imblalane among blacks versus whites. whereas for suicides whites in

this age group of 14 to 18, white rate of homicide is twice that of blacks. next slide. so i'm going to briefly go through sort of four main issues as it connects to gun policy. one has to do with our standards for legal gun ownership. two has to do with mechanisms to keep people from having guns. third has to do with concealed carry and public carrying of guns. and finally has to do with design of guns irks pran pally with respect to assault weapons. well, let's start with this basic fact. i don't think most can actually see well enough the x axis but i'll tell what you this looks like. this is our age specific homicide offending rates. and you can see how dramatically they escalate during adolescents years. years they peek is between the

years of 18 and 20 years old. and they really don't dramatically decline until mid-20s. so this is obviously relevant age as it relates to when a young man who committed the horrendous act of violence in marjory stoneman douglas high school acquired his firearms and carried out the act. next slide, please. in the united states in all 50 states and in the district of columbia you have to be at least 21 years of age to legally consume a beer. 12 states, actually maybe 13 now because of florida, set their age for minimum legal age for having a handgun at 21. now, i have to say the florida conversation and policy making was focused on long guns. what is missing, what people are

missing from the discussion unfortunately is while you have to be 21 to have a background check and records, in most states if you just go online or in a gun show and have a private seller, you only have to be 18. so that makes a lot of illogical sense, doesn't it? i think we have some serious things to address as it relates to minimum age with lethal firearms. so i talked about standards. this is sort of the simple way to illustrate this. the baron the left represents the 13 states with the weakest legal standards for being able to possess a gun. and in those states if you look at the individuals in state prisons because they committed violent acts with firearms, 60%

were legal to possess the gun when they committed that act of violence. so much of our conversation with gun policy bifurcates one group as everybody is law biding because it's legal to have firearm, and another group that is hardened criminals. well if you look in our states with weakest gun laws, that's not what it looks like with respect to who commits acts of violence. i'll explain more about that in a minute. but i also want to compare this with all the other states. in all the other states, a third of the individuals who commit acts of violence with guns and in prison legal to possess the guns. so real difference across our states depending on where they set the standards for people to legally possess owning of guns. next.

this illustrates basically what that difference between the weak law states and the strong law states. what explains that difference? principally it has to do with pro prohibitions, and these are temporary, for young people, either in the 18 to 20 age group, or individuals who committed serious crimes that were adjudicated in the juvenile system. so all the things that we identified that most explain this were things that in the stronger standards states are temporary prohibitions. they are not life long prohibitions. that is because the wrist south carolina not static overtime. that's a really important concept that applies both to safety and to fairness with respect to how we are going to

establish our effective gun laws. next, please. now, whenever there is a mass shooting, the conversation is well this is all about mental illness. well, in mass shootings you have a higher rate of people going through very specific mental illness episodes. but if you look at our problem largely of violence in the united states, the best epidemic evidence is you can explain about 4% of our violence problem due to mental illness. so if someone brilliant enough could come up with some vac eyewitneseen to completely eliminate in our country we would have a whopping 4% in our violence rate sochlt while mental ill inist is a very important thing that is important part of public health, it's been discussed, it is not going to address our gun

violence problem. only a small portion as it relates to interpersonal violence. suicide is completely different matter. very important with respect to suicide. next slide, please. so in the months soon after sandy hook, some academic experts and other groups actually met at johns hopkins to sort of sort through the very difficult issues, both on the science and legal aspects of what to do about this issue with mental illness and guns. and i have to say i was a little skeptical anything useful was going to come from this. but what actually emerged is one of the most powerful things that i think i've seen in gun policy in my 25 years in it. the formation of something called the con sore shun for risk base fire policy. when we actually looked at the data and said how can we have the biggest impact on violent

crime with guns, we said, well, mental illness is not going to take us very far on this. what's the best predictor of violence is prior violence. so the group came up very specific recommendations. some of it are now really being a bright light shined upon them in part because of parkland, sadly, of extreme risk protection orders, that was one of the recommendation that is came from that, that really recognizes that risk and crisis emerge very rapidly in our prohibitions are conditions from keeping guns from people aren't as flexible. and that is one way or one policy that does that. the other recommendation that is flowed from the consortium had to do with temporary misdemeanor or violence. studies showing significant

reduction ns violent crime, 29% in one study, and reduction in intimate partner homicide 25% as well. another important risk factor that some states addressed but most do not is repeated problems with alcohol abuse and alcohol related crimes. credibly high risk for serious acts of violence in that subgroup. sadly, we don't have a lot of data on the effects of available policies, but i think that's a priority in the years to come. also stressed by this group, and this is sort of in part where the extreme risk protection order emerged from, is looking at current policies with fire and prohibitions for domestic violence orders. when you expand those you have significant reductions in partner homicide. all right. very briefly, i want to describe

the most effective ways to keep guns from individuals who are pro hitte prohibited that is through comprehensive background checks. i'll show you a few slides. this is simply different ways to get guns. you can go through law enforcement which is permitting system. you can go to some gun dealers who are sometimes shady. and there are other options as well. next slide. here's what we found when missouri repealed its permitting or licensing laws for handguns in 2007. next slide. this is the difference between missouri homicide rates versus the other 49 states. see dramatic jump in 2008 after the law was repealed. next slide. you also saw city rise in firearm related suicides as

well. next slide. when you put it all together in a variety of forms of analysis to control for everything you need to control for, you get about 20% of firearm homicide and increased wrist income homicide. when missouri adopted the same kind of policy that missouri repealed we found the mere opposite effects. this time in the protective direction. 40% lower rate of firearm homicides over first 10 years and 29 percent over 18 years. angi and, again, significant reduction in suicide. we can come to assault weapons later, i'm just going to show you one data nugget, if you will, as it relates to concealed carry. we had dramatic changes in concealed carry laws over the past 30 years. this gives a look at the map of how this changes with the orange

and yellow signaling very restrictive issuing of permits to carry in 1990. next slide. and now here we are where we are right now and the vast majority of our map there is little or no restrictions that relates to concealed carry. what has been the effect of that? because many say the solution to our problems with bad guys with guns is more good guys and gals with guns out there, what have we learned from that social experiment? next slide will be the simple kind of explanation of this. this is from research from johns hopkins group at stanford. what you see on the bottom each year a state has a right to carry law in place, violent crime grows with each year and more permits and more people, more good gals with guns out

there. we do not see a lowering of violent crime. we see it growing greater and greater. i'll end my discussion there. and we can come back to assault weapons perhaps in this discussion if we have time. [ applause ] >> thank you, daniel. i do want to recognize dr. diana fish bien from penn state our codirector. and one of the creators of this organization that made this all possible. so thank you. >> thank you. >> our next speaker is julie philips pollack. julie, dr. pollack. i'm sure you've heard over and over again the worst thing that can happen to a parent and i am a parent, death of your child. death that occurred so sense

leslie. i'm so sorry to have to repeat that truism today. i suspect the spirit of your doctor, 18-year-old meadow pollack, is what inspires and street ens you and your husband in doing all that you can to put an end to gun rampages that have occurred in way too many schools, schools from places that are now sadly household names. julie. >> thank you. i'm here for meadow. and i want to show our pictures. but i wanted to mention to you the names of the other 16 people that were killed that day. and i've had a chance to speak to their families and meet them since that time. so they include elisa ha dal, buried at the cemetery close to where meadow is.

scott a teacher, nicolas did your ret, aaron physiolofooiz, would like to say he died a hero. jaime guttenberg. chris another coach that went in unarmed, hero. luke, cara love gran. and i'd like to say about cara love gram she and meadow had been trapped together. meadow shot four times and she was stuck outside of the classroom and all the classroom doors locked and lady over top of cara and he came and shot them together five more times killing this em both. gina mantel. joaquin oliver. elena petty. meadow pollack. helena ramsey. alexander schecter. carmen sen trif. and peter wang.

so i'd just like to go through some of the pictures here. this is a picture of meadow with her grandmother. we all went on a family cruise for her 80 birthday. and this is her grandfather that had died a few years ago. they had a very close relationship. and her brother lunter. and her cousin becca. and family vacation we were at the cabbage patch museum. and at a hockey game. and san francisco, obviously. hunter. one of our favorite ice cream cases. this is her brother in the picture and her father. and this is a picture of her with her father. i think i have a few more of those. andrew at different times. meadow and andrew. and this is something that was

put together. her cousins and friends made collages and pictures and had decorated these rocks and that was displayed at our house. pictures of meadow, this is before homecoming. and this is all of us cooking in the kitchen. and this is a picture of meadow with her brothers and cousins. and this is how she lived all the time surrounded by her family. and i just wanted to end with this picture. this is a picture of her boyfriend brandon, this was right at the end of the funeral. so i'm here as meadow pollack's stepmom. i'm one of the many people that love her. she was a beautiful 18-year-old girl. she had amazing family.

she had great parents, grandparents, two brothers, a stepsister and many aunt's and uncles and cousins. she had close friends. she a boyfriend of four years you saw there brandon. and really her entire community loves her. she planned to going to lynn university and had many plans for the future beyond that. so in my work as emergency physician, i work in a level one trauma center and trained level one trauma center. and over and over again i witnessed the effects of violence and treat the fektsd effects of violence. and too many times i've had to tell other parents their child was murdered and they didn't survive. usually it's easier, i maintain a clinical detachment, it let's me go back a few minutes later and treat my other patients that are alive. you just have to keep going. before this i never really have been personally affected about i violence. so really none of us were prepared for this not at all. so in the past i had tried to

advise the girls how to take care of themselves for hanukkah i had given meadow one of the loud personalal larms to use. i would tell her where to park if she was alone at night. i played none would have serious car accident. but this type of thing wasn't on our radar at all. so the day that all of our lives forever changed it was valentine's day. my husband and i were out on a bike ride. and we started getting phone calls that there was a shooting at douglas. initially i thought there is no way it could be meadow. what are the odds this could be her at a school that's so big like 3100 students there. how could it possibly be her? tan then the slow torture started, lasted 13 hours, while we waited for the final confirmation. i was serring the trauma centers where i worked and calling my coworkers, sending them pictures hoping that we would find her at

the hospital. i started to really worry when a good friend of mine i spoke to him, he's director for ems, he called and told me about all the body that is were still in the school on the floor that he was looking at. and as the hours went by, we knew that she had to be there. so we had all hoped that meadow had just lost her phone and detained somewhere in all of this. but then as the time went by, we knew it had to be more than that. so suddenly i did develop a new logistical framework. so how do i tell her grandmother there that she recently lost her husband that that's probably where meadow was too and that i would send a car for her to come be with us. and when do you tell her brother and cues inwho are weigh in college they should start coming home to be with us because we knew after so much time had gone that it had to be her?

and then i wish that i could, but somehow even slightly or temporarily relieved the pain that i was watching her mother go through, the mental anguish is physically difficult to watch. so then the day after the shooting, brought more logistical type of questions. how did we get the body released from the medical examiner? when should we have the funeral? where should we pick for a cement? and then as we walked around the cemetery, we had to pick a spot? and how do you pick the best plot? i don't know, but thankfully our rabbi was there constantly with us and he kind of guided us through this time and sort of through those decisions that nobody wants to have to make. so to begin with, we were aware of what happened to us, but it was hard to imagine what had happened to other people, and it

was hard to even imagine that there was something more going on than what we were experiencing. but during this we had thousands of people come to our house. i started talking to other families and i listened to how they made their funeral arrangements. and met their children that were surviving children and how they were reacting to their own loss. and thousands of people came to our house to honor meadow, some of them i don't know, most of them we did. and our family really pulled together to care for each other. though a lot of volunteers donated their time. and it was really a collective effort. in the pictures there they had the balloons and the decorations and things that we had at our house. so many of meadows friends and school mates, they gathered at our house at the chef shah and then after, and i started talking to them about their experiences, similar to what lauren had.

and their fear of returning to school was pal able. and for the first time, i hadn't thought of it too much before, i realized how vowelnerable our kids are. tan this wasn't the first school shooting. a good friend of mine from medical school, she was at the shooting in kentucky, that was 20 years ago now, and i spoke to her, and it really broke my heart that 20 years later that this was happening, and i hadn't even thought about it or thought of it being something that we could live through. so it begs the question why do we allow it? and as i listened to the students that were in my community that were there at my house that were afraid to go back to school, they were just asking for somebody to tell them that they were safe. and literally they were begging for their lives. so i think that we do have to face the ugly reality that children aren't safe in schools.

and there is going to be predators that don't respect school boundaries. like in this case, his goal was to maximize casualties like he was in a video game. so it's not fair for a student to have to worry she cob hunted and murdered in the hallway like meadow was. how can a student focus on learning and teacher focus on educating whether they are worried this could happen to them. it's a big a problem for teachers that they are secure as well. so in the past month i focused my energy on the issue of safety in school. when you lose a child, there is no sleeping. so i'm fueled by the in justice of meadows death especially after i've learned there are over 200 previous school shootings and up to 300, and it depends how you calculate the numbers. since then i've listened to students, parents, teachers, and law enforcement, i spoke to parents from columbine and sandy hook pan i read their research

and their proposals. and my husband and i have been doing a lot of work trying to understand this and see what we can do to improve things. and in that time we've met with secretaries of education, health and human services and homeland security, a few u.s. senators and with the president. and in florida i spoke to governor scott and several state legislatures. and i do feel the lawmakers are listening and that things are being changed. so in florida i'm very proud to say that my family with other families went to tallahassee and worked to help pass the safety bill 7026. i do think it is an important bill. no bill is ever perfect but it's ta comprehensive bill includes funding for school hardening, reasonable gun control measures in it. it includes threat assessment like dr. cornell had mentioned. also access to mental health in schools like lauren had mentioned that's a big part of

it. they wanted to have a mental health person at each school right now. counselors are there for career guidance. they are not mental health experts. also improves communication between dcf and the police and schools so that's important because there has been a lack of communication in this instance in particular. so it's a start. so in my work as an emergency physician we treat critical patients in systematic matter. we first assess, a airway, then b breathing then c circulation. then move to treat the acute condition. later down we the line we do secondary prevention which is treatment of early dedisease such as diabetic, lastly, but important diet and vaccination, preventive, and that's what public health is all about, what we are discussing here. so i feel that we need to apply

a similar straight heegt here. so our abcs are security. i do feel like we need to have a secure perimeter how sandy hook was built. i think it's way too easy to walk on campuses in america with a weapon of some kind, a gun or whatever else. and it's time for this the security analysis to evaluate the security that we have here and implement changes that would make the school more liken tearing a courthouse. it doesn't have to be a fortress. you don't have to have armed security at every door. but it could be similar to the building we walked in here. even a little less security. if there was maybe at the school just a few cameras, if there was entrance, an exit, and a few things, i'm not a security expert, but the department of homeland security is willing to go to the schools and make some recommendations. so i think after the teachers and students are secured, the focus can return to secondary

prevention such as treating the school environment like the mental health itch nifs. and lastly we can address primary prevention that treats over the last 20 years is the debate on gun control after each shooting which is a valid question, but this approach has done nothing to secure our kids. this lack of action is what killed meadow. so i believe that gun control is an important topic and it should be included in the discussion of primary prevention, but i do not believe that we should let politics and bureaucracies stand in the way of securing our schools again. so i've heard people describe here that they are concerned that spending money on security could take away from funding for mental health, but i think that we don't have to compromise. i think that we can have both and that hour children are worth it. people ask me every day if there's something that they can

do, and what we can all do is not allow this to happen again. there wouldn't be a better way to honor meadow and the other 16 people that were killed that day, and i appreciate everybody being here. i think an important aspect of the secondary prevention is the mental health measures that we've all been talking about today with social work, mental health and primary prevention with gun control measures, and i appreciate everybody having me here. thanks. [ applause ] >> thank you, julie. i just want to say two quick things. one, i really want to underscore what david schonfeld in particular highlighted, that everybody has different ways to mourn, and we need to respect the diversity of that mourning. so i just want to say that. and i also want to say this has

been fabulous. we are going to put this entire discussion on our website at the national prevention science coalition. it will be up in about two weeks, right, jess? this is a lot of material that even for somebody who is familiar with our literature, and i want to commend all the speakers, too. it's incredibly hard with their vast -- our vast knowledge to say something cogent and moving and true in 12 minutes, so i want to thank you for all doing that. now i would like to introduce dorothy espelage. with the highest of scientific standards and integrity, dorothy has published more scientific articles in the area of school bullying and harassment than any single scholar. i didn't do a count. i just know that every time i'm looking at the literature, dorothy -- dorothy is one of the

co-authors more frequently than not, and perhaps akin to joyce carol oates she writes anew with deep insights and wisdom so i'll turn it over to dorothy to make some comments about what she heard and where we go from here. >> well, you can imagine this is -- i'm an emotional person so i'm -- i'm not the typical academic and that you just shut down and say, okay, this is what the data say. so i appreciate your comments, and i appreciate your recommendations, and you're brave to make those recommendations when so many of the academics that are sitting up here were not brave two decades ago to put ourselves out there to make some measures. what i heard, and i like that you started with science with humanity, because my students here from the university of florida, that's what we do. i i'm going to try to hold myself together, but what i did here and i want perhaps there's

parents out here listening, there's administrators listening, there's teachers listening. many of these recommendations are grounded in research. there is a big divide between what you heard about today and what's happening in our schools. i only have time for a few examples, but what comes to mind talking about mental health. mental health and social emotional learning are words that are not allowed to be spoken in some of our states. the i was in texas a month ago, and i was told before two days of -- i'm probably going to get in trouble of this, on changing -- i might not that have job anymore, working on health education standards that are 20 years old not to mention social emotional learning, okay, so as much as we want to say social emotional learning is accepted in our communities and the academics, we're not allowed to use that word. i also want people to recognize parents and teachers and administrators. 70% of our counsellors in

schools are trained to do mental health work. most of them are not doing it. they are scheduling computer labs. they are scheduling testing. two weeks ago when i sat with the focus groups of high school students in urbana, illinois, the kids said i can't get an appointment with my guidance counsellor who is a school psychologist because she's scheduling testing. that's real. so it's not as if we need to put mental health professionals, maybe it's more, but how about you use the ones in the schools that are trade to do mental health and not have them doing clerical work. actually, that's a crisis of counsellor education. [ applause ] what are the barriers to all this implementation? we live in the schools, right. we're not just sitting behind a computer looking at data and crunching numbers. why is it that principals can't find time for social emotional learning? why is it that teachers feel that restorative practices and

problem-solving that would address inequities in disciplinary methods, why is it that we're letting somebody off the hook? why is it that when we sit in a restorative circle we get pushback from adults, that that takes too much time and training when in fact the research is starting to show that when you take a restorative approach to discipline, people feel safer. they stay in school. they feel connected. why is it that when we go into every school and we have the teachers and administrators and the counselors put names of kids on post-its and when they go on a break we establish that 20% to 25% of the kids, and we ask them. put the names of kids on post-its that you know and you feel like you have a significant relationship with. we come back. 20% to 25% of the kids in the school, they are not named, and usually i'd be a little bit coherent and i'm emotional and worked up. i hear that data and live in that world of data, you know, and i have to do this work for the funders. we have to publish, and i publish so much with my students

only to fight against the non-scientific base that's out there in our school. plenty of things being implemented but it's not rooted in science, and until we understand and publish this work and disseminate it on a large scale. i want to end on a positive note, as much as we can be positive when we think about just the ways in which we're failing our children in our schools and communities, and we have been funded nicely by the national institute of justice for the last two and a half years. we've been in the trenches with high school students in this country. we have been talking to them, and high school students two years ago, when we were trying to develop a reporting app, we wanted to talk to kids because what do we know? kids know about the kids that have mental health issues in the school. they know who is bringing the weapons to school. they know who is talking about it. they watch them on social media. what is the breakdown? why are these high school students not telling adults or their parents? what did they say two years ago? they said there's -- i don't want to be a snitch. you cannot talk about this

reporting without this idea of a snitch culture. two weeks ago those same kids we talked to, two years ago, said they would use the reporting app called the advocator that they developed if this -- if that were the situation. there's also great pushback in the schools that if we create a mechanism such that kids can communicate if we have the trust between the teachers and the students, if we do create this, what's going to happen if we identify mental health issues and we don't have resources for them? we hear this, right, so here we have something that the kids have designed and the kids say we want to be able to report emotional and physical safety issues. i want to get resources for my friends that have challenges around mental health issues and i hear from superintendents and principals what happens if we identify that 20% to 25% of our kids are isolated, have suicidal ideation and attempts and i said then we take care of them. it's part of the adultism that's led to the never again movement and to emma and to all the brave

people in florida and also to the black lives matter where i lived and worked in chicago public schools where these conversations were a daily conversation, but those kids had to get up and walk to that school and know that they might lose a family member. they might hear gunfire on a regular basis. so i think, in fact, i can't wait to march with my students tomorrow because they are the next generation because we have failed. we have failed, and i just promise you that we will do what we can, but we have a lot of work to do, and if you're a teacher and you're a principal and you're always using the word but, rethink it and use and. thank you. [ applause ] >> so i want to give ron just a moment to make a quick comment.

>> yeah. i just want to follow up with all the panel comments and with what dorothy said. if there's one thing to talk to your legislators about, many of us are university professors and shame on us even to follow up on dorothy's comment that we're challenged in our teacher education programs, in our superintendent programs and in our principal programs to teach any of the things that you've heard over here in a systematic way at the state level. we need to challenge our universities and provide funding so that every teacher, every principal, every superintendent program has both the social ability to know that that's core and also the research that's behind it so it's not. it all happens afterwards. that could be a major change a la the recommendations that you're thinking of doing. and i think, also, what we hear here, too, is there's not enough funding. you need a view change and what dewey and some of the other people mentioned on the thing. if there isn't funding built not

district system ongoing, i don't just mean a grant, i mean ongoing for supports, then this stuff is experimented on. we have evidence-based programs, and it disappears. so those are two big areas i would like to urge the crowd as you're thinking on further, universities and funding these systems long term so they are sustainable. thank you. [ applause ] >> we're going to have to wrap up. everybody is invited to the reception. what room is it? >> 2044. i'm sorry we didn't have time for questions. i also want to say that both ron and david schonfeld are -- we know this has been -- much of it has been hard to hear, but if you want to go down to the reception and they would be glad to accept out with you and talk with you if you just want to say

anything. so i think that's -- that's important, and, again, thank you all for coming. we will look forward to seeing you all tomorrow on the march. so take care. thank you. [ applause ]

coming up today on c-span 3 more on school violence as student journalists from marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland florida talk about their experiences witnessing the mass shooting that killed 17 of their classmates and school staff. as well as how they covered the tragedy for their school newspaper. then, some of the participants from the march for our lives rally talking about their experiences. and later, hud secretary ben carson testifying before the senate banking committee. tonight on "american history tv" a look at women's rights in the u.s., including a program

from our 1968 america in turmoil series. it features former barnard college president deborah spar and mona charlize theron, author of the book "sex matters," how modern feminism lost touch with science, love and common sense. american history tv in primetime begins tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3. a day before the student-led march for our lives rally, student journalists from marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, talked about their experienced witnessing the mass shooting that killed 17 of their classmates and school staff. as well as covering the tragedy for their school newspaper. the newseum hosted this event. [ applause ] c