Episode description
School safety is more important than ever, and empowering students to speak up can make all the difference. Safe 2 Say Something is a youth violence prevention program run by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Brittney Klein, Program Director of Safe 2 Say, says this program was created in 2019 and is mandatory that every school in the state participates.
“The primary mission of this program was actually developed to avert school violence. It was developed to prevent afterschool violence in that a student, if they see something or hear something, either in school or on social media or just in talking with friends, that they can actually report it to us anonymously without any judgment or any questions.”
The office soon realized after launching the program that the program did more than prevent school violence.
“It actually became a program that would take a lot of steps geared toward mental health concerns among students, whether it's actually for themselves or for others. So, a lot of our top tip types that we actually receive are actually geared towards mental health concerns of our students.
Since it’s launch in 2019, the program has had a huge impact on community and the schools in Pennsylvania.
“I can safely say that we have averted potential school shootings through intervention and collaboration with police in our schools, and that was based off of threats that were received by another student who reported it to us. I can also say that we have five students who actually were considering suicide, and we were able to intervene and get students’ help in their students who were obviously struggling. And somebody else reported that they had concerns. So, we were able to intervene in that way as well. Our program continues to be a national leader of school safety, said one. We've received over approximately 170,000 tips and so on for the program.”
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