COLUMBIA, MO—FBI St. Louis, FBI Kansas City, and the Missouri School Boards’ Association’s (MSBA) Center for Education Safety are co-hosting a two-day summit on school threat management on March 6-7, 2024. Specifically, the summit will help schools incorporate behavioral risk assessment into their school safety practices.

This first Missouri summit for school and mental health communities will feature experts from across the country. “The opportunity to stop the pathway to violence in schools starts with prevention strategies that give all students both help and hope. We want every school in Missouri to have the critical training that supports a safe learning environment,” said Chief Operating Officer John McDonald of MSBA’s Center for Education Safety. “We are excited to partner with the FBI and the state of Missouri to offer this essential program.”

This summit complements the ongoing FBI St. Louis School Safety Initiative (SSI) which hosts conferences and training events throughout the year. “FBI St. Louis is focused on sharing what we’ve learned through our investigations so schools and police departments can build and own the proactive strategies that fit their communities,” said Special Agent in Charge Jay Greenberg of the FBI St. Louis Division.

FBI St. Louis created the SSI program in 2021 and has hosted five other school safety training events to date. The SSI initiative leverages a whole of ecosystem approach by bringing together school safety stakeholders, providing resources, and encouraging the creation of internal school-based assessment teams. The goal is to identify and prevent young people who may be vulnerable to becoming radicalized to violence. By being aware of pre-violence indicators, schools can provide positive resources to students well before an escalation to potential violence.

Past SSI conference topics included: Pre-Violence Indicators in Students, Building School Threat Assessment Teams, local-area Mental Health and Crisis Intervention Resources, Hoax and Swatting Threats, and Sextortion.