The overall goal of the school workgroup is to coordinate with and leverage the efforts of multiple stakeholders to achieve better educational outcomes for youth. To do this effectively, the Violence Prevention Coordinator reassessed the scope of work and determined which key players were needed to move the work forward. A combination of 27 individual and group meetings took place and they began working on activities that would ultimately lead to the established goal. They also leveraged already existing school collaboratives, such as the county education Memorandum of Understanding. The MOU represents agencies with key roles in the continuum of behavioral health services for children and youth, including several departments and divisions of Multnomah County, Multnomah County School Districts, and the City of Portland.

The short survey was the first step in identifying resources already available to schools and determining additional resources to consider in the design and implementation of new initiatives. The survey results overall indicated that school staff did not believe they had adequate training in how to identify and support gang impacted students and often were heavily reliant on system responses as an intervention. You can find the results above.

The MOU workgroup has examined the results and continues to improve school climate that supports all students. It's important to note that the current social injustice issues our community faces have played a role in the engagement of school administration. Considering the dynamics of law enforcement and differences among the three main agencies across the county that provide SRO’s to different districts, a similar survey was developed to be distributed to SRO’s to determine what kinds of resources could be developed to improve safety in schools from their perspective.

Contact Mary Geelan to get more information on what's going on with schools!