Services

School Safety Services

Our Unique Student-Centered Approach

Though dramatic improvements have been made in school safety over the past decade, many schools still face difficult challenges in this arena. Schools need experts who understand the unique needs of K12 schools. Safe Havens analysts have extensive global experience in providing practical and effective services to help make schools safer, better prepared for emergencies and more efficient at the very process of education. Safe Havens is world renowned for thoughtful and effective school safety measures that can dramatically improve school climate, help raise test scores, reduce employee turnover, reduce truancy and dropout rates, increase time on task and reduce exposure to civil liability and loss of public confidence. 

Our Executive Director formed Safe Havens because he was severely bullied in school and survived a weapons assault in his senior year in high school. He knows what it is like to attend a failing school and just as importantly, he knows what it is like to attend a superb one.  He knows first hand how much of a barrier to academic achievement fear can be but he also was fortunate to experience dedicated educators who knew how to remove these barriers. These experiences shape the unique Safe Havens approach as much as the extensive work experience and unequalled credentials of our analysts.  Safe Havens is deeply centered on the needs of students, educators and school communities in a manner unlike any other organization in the world.   With work experience in more than two dozen countries and more books published on the topic by our personnel than any other organization in the world, Safe Havens offers a depth of expertise unrivaled in the private sector.

Please Speak with Our References

As a non-profit global campus safety center, Safe Havens works diligently to make students, staff and visitors safer around the world. Safe Havens offers a unique global perspective on school safety that affords an exchange of ideas between continents unmatched in the field. As Les Nichols, Vice President of the Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs of America said in a reference letter, “If you are looking for the best, look no further.” Mr. Nichols should be well qualified to make that statement as Safe Havens has been involved with most club safety projects for the past decade and our analysts have presented at several national conferences for Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs of America. See our video and written testimonials or contact us for a list of references.  

As with our conference keynotes and training sessions, the majority of the school safety consulting work we do comes from word of mouth rather than marketing efforts. A number of our references have worked with numerous for profit consulting firms and can provide an impartial assessment of our capabilities and performance.

Safe Havens Works Hard to Help Clients Reduce the Cost of Consulting Projects

For mid-sized to large public, charter and independent school clients who seek to maintain a practical balance between cost and a thorough evaluation, we recommend an approach where our analysts work with the client to select a representative sample of schools and support facilities to be assessed. While many for profit consulting firms encourage clients to have all schools and sites evaluated, we have found that most clients are better served by reducing the cost of the evaluation process by reducing the number of days on site required by our analysts. Our experience has been that this type of evaluation will help the client identify the most prevalent concerns because most safety and security concerns are commonly found in multiple buildings in the organization.  For example, if the client organization has gaps in student supervision, access control procedures, visitor screening procedures or common safety practices like safety straps on television sets, we will identify these gaps with visits to just a few sites.  We also often help our clients reduce the cost of assessment projects through a blended approach where our analysts conduct in depth assessments of a representative sampling of sites and abbreviated assessments of all sites in the organization.  

These approaches often dramatically reduce the cost of an assessment project enabling the client to utilize available funds to correct safety and security gaps that are found.  For example, when we were approached by the Evansville - Vanderburgh Indiana School Corporation to conduct access control assessments of all schools in the district, we suggested the blended approach. This afforded them a thorough assessment of the corporation’s access control procedures with visits to all schools while reducing the cost of the project by more than 75%. While there are clearly instances where it is beneficial for a client to have all schools and sites assessed, the majority of our clients opt to reduce the cost of the assessment process using one of these less costly approaches.  As our non-profit philosophy places the needs of children and youth above revenue generation, our references will report that we routinely steer them to free resources or methods of achieving their goals at a reduced cost while maintaining high quality.

Our Unique Mentoring Approach

Another unique aspect of our approach to school safety, security, emergency preparedness and recovery assessments is our mentoring approach.  As long as it suits the needs of our clients, we prefer to use assessment projects as an opportunity for representatives of our client organizations to internalize school safety expertise.  If you speak with our references, you will consistently hear that we emphasize the opportunity for their personnel to learn from us during these projects.  Even school security, safety and emergency preparedness personnel with decades of experience report that they have learned a great deal from our analysts during these projects.  Safe Havens has trained hundreds of school safety consultants from more than a dozen countries and we use the same methodologies to enhance our client’s knowledge base that we use to train consultants.  A number of our clients have told us that they feel more qualified after the completion of a large assessment project than for fee school safety consultants they have retained in the past.

Experience That is Unmatched in the Private Sector

For those who seek highly qualified expertise that will withstand courtroom scrutiny, Safe Havens has analysts who are unmatched in the private sector. Safe Havens analysts have published more school safety books, produced more school safety videos, authored more school safety web courses and worked in more countries than any ten for-profit school safety consulting firms combined. Having full-time analysts with actual full-time work experience in all four phases of school safety planning as well as full-time law enforcement, emergency management, public health and ant-terrorism work experience, allows Safe Havens to provide exceptional service to our clients. No for-profit firm in the world has as much full-time work experience in the field of K12 school safety, security and emergency management as Safe Havens. This extensive full-time experience can be crucial for the creation of not only effective, but court defensible solutions which is becoming increasingly important with recent successful litigation against school administrators who have retained unqualified school safety consultants.

Though we offer a wide array of other custom consulting services, here are some of the more popular areas of expertise offered by our world renowned analysts.

School and school district security and safety assessments
School District Emergency Preparedness Assessments
School Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness Assessments
Student Supervision Assessments
School Crisis Team Assessments
School Recovery Team Assessments
Business Continuity Plan Assessment
Off-Site Family Reunification Plan Development
Pandemic Influenza Plan Development
Planning for the Pandemic Influenza Outbreak
Off-Site School Safety Plan Evaluation
Safe School Facilities Design Team Development 
School Safety Training Videos
Grant Writing Services
Expert Witness Services

School and school district security and safety assessments

School security and safety assessments help school officials identify potential vulnerabilities as well as strengths relating to security and safety for students, staff and visitors. The link between school safety and academic achievement has been firmly established… more

School District Emergency Preparedness Assessments

School emergency preparedness assessments are one of the most effective ways to identify significant gaps in school emergency preparedness before an incident reveals them with chronic plan failure. Chronic plan failure has occurred in a number of school organizations after they have expended millions of dollars on preparedness only to have simple gaps that could have been identified cause plan failure… more

 School Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness Assessments

The school safety, security and emergency preparedness assessment is the most comprehensive standard audit we offer. Using a combination of off-site and on-site evaluation methodologies, Safe Havens blends the use of assessment tools with extensive global experience unmatched in the private sector to thoughtfully evaluate policies, practices, customs and procedures that relate to these three distinct and crucial school safety areas… more

Student Supervision Assessments

Student supervision assessments can often improve the level of school safety far more quickly than thousands and even millions of dollars in security cameras for schools and school districts. Student supervision can help reduce the risks of most student risks ranging from teasing to terrorism… more

School Crisis Team Assessments

Another Safe Havens first in the field is the crisis response and recovery team audit developed by Safe Havens. Dr. Sony Shepherd, who coordinated crisis response and recovery efforts for all K-20 organizations in the State of Georgia while serving with the School Safety Project of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency – Office of the Governor, developed the process… more

School Recovery Team Assessments

The school recovery team assessments examine the first and second elements of the people-process-technology triad of response and recovery components as related to the mental health of people and the physical security of the facilities… more

Business Continuity Plan Assessment

It is now generally recognized that Business Continuity Planning is a vital activity that must be undertaken by schools. However, the creation and maintenance of a sound business continuity plan, is a complex task, involving a series of critical steps… more

Off-Site Family Reunification Plan Development

Dr. Sonayia Shepherd is a nationally recognized innovator in the specialty off-site family reunification plan development and is the only professional to offer a full two-day training and consulting program on this challenging and critical core competency area of school emergency preparedness planning… more

Pandemic Influenza Plan Development

The H5N1 influenza virus (commonly referred to as the Avian Flu) presents new challenges to the school and business community, especially if it becomes a pandemic influenza in the United States. Many scientist and medical personnel are taking great strides in ensuring that our nation is prepared for a pandemic outbreak of influenza…more

Planning for the Pandemic Influenza Outbreak

First and foremost is the education of the entire community. Everyone must be aware that the impact of a pandemic will affect the government just the same as businesses, the home or the schools…more

Off-Site School Safety Plan Evaluation

For campus organizations with a limited budget, Safe Havens can provide a detailed and comprehensive off-site school safety plan evaluation to help spot gaps in planning… more

Safe School Facilities Design Team Development

Proper school design can dramatically improve safety and the perceptions of students, staff and parents regarding the safety of a school. Utilizing concepts such as first- and second-generation crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), Safe Havens experts can help reduce the cost of new facility construction and major renovation projects while helping our clients design and build more attractive, easy to supervise, secure and maintain schools while dramatically enhancing school climate… more 

School Safety Training Videos

With ever tighter budgets and time pressure for effective staff development, custom school safety training videos can be the least expensive and one of the most effective ways to provide training for staff, students and parents relating to school safety, security and emergency preparedness. Safe Havens is well known in the field for producing the most frequently viewed, interesting and effective school safety videos in the world...more 

Grant Writing Services

The following is a list of grant writing services we provide that is not inclusive. Other services and rates can be negotiated after review of services is completed and finances available are determined… more

Expert Witness Services

Schools in the United States, Canada and the U.K., unfortunately, face school safety related litigation on a much too frequent basis. Though not a primary focus of our non-profit center, Safe Havens analysts accept carefully screened cases that will have an impact on school safety… more

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