Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/safety/)
Most gun incidents in and around campuses are more like Oak Park than Uvalde. They're not planned large-scale shootings, or active-shooter situations. More often, they're smaller altercations that escalate when someone has a gun at or near a school, a game or other event, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, which tracks incidents from the last five decades.
The backstories of Sakran and Pep couldn’t be more different. But their survivor stories drive their activism about the public health threat that gun violence poses and prove what some of the most alarming news headlines increasingly suggest: Almost anybody, almost anywhere, is a potential victim of gun violence.
After running toward the sound of a gunshot that still haunts her, Marentha Sargent watched her 14-year-old, Adrienne Lambert, bleeding from the chest as she collapsed. Moments earlier, the 14-year-old son of Gene Roessler, Sargent’s friend, had ejected the magazine from Roessler’s gun, pointed its barrel at Adrienne and pulled the trigger. The boy didn’t realize, according to police records, there was a bullet in the chamber of his father’s handgun, which he’d grabbed from the kitchen table of their suburban Houston home while the adults were in the garage watching football on TV.
Every day, I walk into school greeted with silencing stares from armed police officers. They’re not facing the windows or the doors looking out for a stranger who could walk in and hurt my friends and me. Their eyes are on us, not some external threat. We walk past them silently, afraid that anything we do or say will be perceived as a “threat” that will lead to suspension, arrest or worse, physical harm.
Our schools have normalized this fear by allowing officers to patrol our hallways and criminalize us. In my county, a police officer was celebrated for tasing a Black freshman girl three times inside her school cafeteria.
The most dangerous time in a violent relationship is when a victim decides to leave.
I never said "no."
In fact, I said "I love you."
He said "No, you don't."
He also said he was going to kill me.
I don't know if I believed him.
For the first time, Facebook is considering allowing children under 13 to join the social networking site, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. But a study last year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found Facebook is already full of children younger than 13. According to the report, 46 percent of 12-year-olds are already using Facebook despite the prohibition, either with their parents’ permission or by lying about their age. The Wall Street Journal reports Facebook is researching policies and new technologies that will keep young children safe while using the page. Possibilities include giving parents control over their child’s account by linking the parent and child accounts together.
One Alabama daycare center is drawing attention to a law that exempts centers associated with church ministries from licensing and regulation. Kids Space Daycare in Foley, Alabama, was denied a business license by the city, but The Mobile Press-Register reports city officials ultimately have no grounds to shut the center down because of its church affiliation. The city denied the center’s business license because of reports of problems at two previous facilities run by the same operator, Deborah Stokes. Stokes claims her daycare facility complies with the law and that children enrolled at the center are well cared for. Foley police say Stokes was arrested in Mobile County on charges of child endangerment that occurred at a facility she operated in that county.
A few bumps, bruises and broken bones from playing on a playground might be good for kids after all. Playgrounds with safety features such as low height limitations and padded ground might be too safe, the New York Times reports, potentially preventing kids from developing emotionally and contributing to unnecessary anxiety later in life. Risky play, such as climbing or wrestling, gradually exposes kids to dangers and helps them solve problems. What kids learn on the playground is a similar technique that therapists use to help conquer phobias in adults – starting small and working toward larger goals, such as reaching the top of the monkey bars – Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway, told the Times. Some experts and parents disagree with the idea that playgrounds may be too safe, worrying fears may be introduced too early in a child’s life and ultimately develop into phobias. However, recent studies have shown quite the opposite, purporting that kids injured at a younger age are less likely to develop phobias toward risky behavior as those who didn’t experience the same life lessons.
The Department of Health and Human Services, The Administration for Children and Families, The Administration on Children, Youth and Families, is offering the Runaway and Homeless Youth Street Outreach Program. The goal is to assist children who fall victim to exploitation and abuse on the streets. The objective is to increase the safety, wellbeing and self-sufficiency of homeless youth. This is accomplished by building connections with them so organizations can help provide for the child’s immediate physical needs while helping improve behavioral and psychological health for them. The deadline is June 24, 2011.