Congress approves Higher Education Act Reauthorization
By CRayan | July 31, 2008
Congress approved the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. This means that grants will be available for higher educational institutions for things like establishing an emergency hotline. We offer a product called Tipformation which is a web-based tipline.
Here is a link which will be of interest to campus safety profesionals:
http://www.iaclea.org/members/Legislative/LegislativePriorities.cfm
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School Shootings
By Jeremy Tamsett | April 14, 2008
CNN has compiled a list of some 48 school shootings on their website. The list is a compilation of such tragedies not only in the USA, but in Europe as well.
While there are mixed reports out there, occassionally there are obvious signs from people who do these attacks. School resource officers, community police, parents, teachers, and friends all need to keep a close eye on those who seem disturbed and/or under mental stress.
The first story that CNN presents is about a 16 year old who was caught by his parents before he committed his intented crime; his excuse was that he was bullied around, and he claimed that his heroes were the executioners of Columbine high school.
Fed up with the bullies, Richard says, he felt like an outcast and started looking for a way to get even. Secretly, he began reading books about Columbine in his school library. The shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, became his heroes.
“They planned it out so perfectly and so meticulously… that I just, wow, you know,” he said. “They’re my gods.” He even created a hit list of the classmates he planned to kill at Prairie High School in Cottonwood, Idaho.
“My plan was to set around bombs around the school…I analyzed a lot of where everybody sat and where everybody did their thing,” he said. “I had pinpoints of where I wanted to go, where I wanted to do it.”
Harvard Medical School psychologist William Pollack, who consulted on a 2002 federal government study of school shootings, said it found that most school shooters often had feelings of anger, sadness and isolation as well as homicidal and suicidal thoughts.
Everyone in the school and campus safety industry needs to keep a close eye on students and stories like these. We can prevent an epidemic of violence from exploding on campuses in our communities.
http://topics.cnn.com/topics/school_shootings
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School shooting in Illinois
By Jeremy Tamsett | February 15, 2008
The disturbing news of a “honor” student at Northern Illinois University (NIU) should be a call to action for all police officers, law enforcement officials, and school resource officers to ensure that they have adequate school crisis response plans in place.
One of the keys to prevent, mitigate, and respond to a crisis, like a school shooting, is to ensure that the right people have the right information at the right time. You know that you can’t wait to put together an emergency plan of action after the fact - by then, it is too late.
No school or campus wants to put itself its students or employees in harm’s way. But the reality is that not every school campus out there has taken the necessary steps to promote public safety and reduce risk to their constituents.
Step one is building a crisis or emergency plan, step two is to get that information to all faculty, staff, and school resource officers as well as to local, state, and even federal law enforcement officials that are in or near your area. Step three is to make sure that in an emergency, you can communicate information to everyone affected - that could mean an entire campus, school system, or community.
A mass notification system is one key element of any comprehensive public safety program; you also need written contingency plans, and maps of the local area - including buildings, dorms, and other facilities on your campus - in the hands of local law enforcement agencies so they can get to critical areas quickly.
Putting all of these, and other elements, together takes work and you may find that you need professional guidance. Don’t settle for a quick-fix or a company that offers only a technology solution - you want a company that will partner with you and build a long-term relationship with you. Resiligence offers a wide-range of comprehensive campus and school safety solutions built on both technology and human factors. Give us a call or send us an e-mail, we want to hear from you and learn about your needs.
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Developing a School Occupational Safety and Crisis Response Plan
By Jeremy Tamsett | February 6, 2008
There are institutions that have not aligned automated assessment, monitoring, alerting, compliance, and training best practices throughout the organization. They have not adopted a culture of continuous risk management. Such institutions continue to struggle with reactive security measures, over-allocated resources for trouble shooting vulnerabilities and security events, and enforcing compliance.
Only those institutions that adopt a culture of continuous risk management can cost effectively reduce liability and enhance their ability to respond rapidly to protect the institution, its customers, and business partners from today’s internal and external threats and vulnerabilities.
To alleviate exposure to unnecessary risk, every school and campus should have in place comprehensive and coherent plans that address issues concerning occupational safety and crisis response. The School Safety Plan, for example, is the foundation that a school uses to maintain a safe and secure educational environment. There are three components to a comprehensive school safety plan. Those components are:
To learn more about how Resiligence can help you build a tailored occupational safety and crisis response plan, please visit our homepage and contact us today: http://www.resiligence.com/services.html
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The role of the stakeholder in campus safety
By Jeremy Tamsett | November 20, 2007
Public and campus safety officials have a responsibility to implement prevention and response strategies to protect relevant stakeholders. Key stakeholders have a particular interest in seeing that campus safety personnel are taking active steps to ensure preparedness of their campus and the surrounding community. This applies not only to students, but faculty and local business owners and residents as well. 
While it is the responsibility of those charged with public and campus safety to invest in resources to enhance situational awareness and promote information sharing, in addition to relevant equipment procurement and training, they cannot operate in a vacuum independent of the involvement of the community that they are charged to protect.
To obtain maximum effectiveness, stakeholders must participate in carrying out the tasks and capabilities needed to achieve the goal of preparedness. Information is paramount to achieve this goal. It is the responsibility of public and campus safety officials to reach out and educate the stakeholders on a regular and consistent basis using easy-to-understand risk communication language in familiar and comfortable settings.
The bottom line is that stakeholders need to be aware that they play a large role in public safety and preparedness. Their cooperation is needed to follow instructions of authorities that are providing information in the event of a crises or disaster. Of course, this means that those authorities must have already worked hard to build the confidence and trust of their constituents, and possess the minimum capabilities to share timely and accurate information to their stakeholders, such as is possible through an intelligent mass notification system.
Topics: Analysis, Public Safety, Risk Management, Solution Management, campus safety | No Comments »
Campus and school safety needs priority research and funding
By Jeremy Tamsett | November 15, 2007
Allocating increased funding for research on campus public safety should be a priority of college and university administrators, state education and funding agencies, professional associations, private foundations, and the federal government. There is a need for increased research on campus safety and security. An extensive literature review showed that research on campus safety and security issues was either lacking or dated.
Major professional associations and agencies such as the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security should designate research on campus safety and security as a priority. This is essential for establishing a foundation of meaningful information on which to build plans and make decisions concerning the future of the field of campus public safety.
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What is the definition of risk?
By Jeremy Tamsett | October 24, 2007
Risk is defined by the Society for Risk Analysis as “the potential for realization of unwanted, adverse consequences to human life, health, property or the environment.”
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Risk in campus safety
By Jeremy Tamsett | October 20, 2007
All organizations want to reduce or minimize their exposure to risk. No where, lately, is this more true of campus and school safety than in almost any other sector. The safety and protection of human life, especially our children at schools, is a serious and growing problem.
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Resiligence relies on a synergy of human and technology factors
By Jeremy Tamsett | October 18, 2007
We want to continue our series of introducing you to Resiligence, who are we, what we do, and how we do it. The reason we are doing this is because we want to establish a relationship with you; we want to get to know you. Every good, strong relationship is based on knowledge and trust - when you get to know us, you will trust us and vise versa.
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What is Resiligence?
By Jeremy Tamsett | October 8, 2007
Resiligence is the conjunction of the words “resilience” and “intelligence”. Our company is on the cutting-edge of providing our stakeholders with intelligence that makes them resilient.
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