Integrated School Resource Officer (SRO) Safety Model and Training Curriculum
In the aftermath of the April 16th, 2007 Virginia Tech campus shootings, Professor E. Scott Geller, Shane McCarty, and other students initiated a grassroots movement: Actively Caring for People (AC4P). For more than 20 years, Dr. Geller has successfully used the AC4P model to reduce the frequency and severity of workplace injury in organizational settings (Geller et al, 2012). In 2009, Shane McCarty expanded the AC4P concept as an intervention framework to enhance school climate with the vision of cultivating a more compassionate culture of non-violence, leading to improved school safety (Geller, 2013).
With the support of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems at Virginia Tech, the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention, the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, the Angel Fund, and the Kevin Lawall Fellowship, research-based AC4P interventions were developed for elementary, middle, and high school settings. The AC4P approach complements the ubiquitous top-down administrative-led Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) initiatives by increasing peer-to-peer prosocial reinforcement to reduce bullying in elementary schools (McCarty, McCutchen, Teie & Geller, in press; McCarty & Geller, 2013). Results also suggest efficacy for the AC4P approach in middle schools to prevent aggression (McCarty & Geller, 2013). The high school and university applications of AC4P are being developed and evaluated.
Trained AC4P Coaches deliver research-based interventions to student leaders in order to increase prosocial and active bystander behaviors, improve leadership skills and AC4P club effectiveness. School Resource Officers (SROs) are employed to train, mentor, and teach AC4P club members the SARA (scan, analysis, response, assessment) problem solving model as these students diagnose the problems in their school and develop prosocial initiatives to address these concerns and enhance school climate, and eventually school culture. Additionally, HS leaders may choose to teach an AC4P curriculum to middle school students on character strengths and caring.
The AC4P Module of the School Resource Officer Training Curriculum will provide knowledge of AC4P applications, skills for more effective caring, and specific information for mentoring and coaching elementary school, middle school and high school students as they lead AC4P initiatives in their schools.
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