Working Group Going Forward
Ashley Nellis
Dear all,
The two co-chairs of this working group, Kaitlin and myself, recently met to discuss the best way to proceed in the short term for this group. As you will remember, this working group, a part of the Nat'l Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition, formed in direct response to the Newtown tragedy. In addition to issuing a statement from the whole coalition, we reviewed statements and documents put forth by the administration such as the "Now is the Time" Executive Actions, put together a number of important statements of our own and met with relevant lawmakers who were considering legislation. Some of us also participated in listening sessions of VP Biden's task force that emerged as a response to Newtown. Individual organizations shared their own statements. As a group we also monitored and weighed in on the NRA's School Shield proposal. Since this time, members of this group have met with the COPs office to learn more about funding for SROs, and encouraged them to direct funds toward school counselors instead/as well. Some of us met with research staff at the NIJ once RFPs were circulated to support a large-scale study of school violence/safety; here we urged the reviewers to consider proposals that addressed the school to prison pipeline.
In short, we've done a lot!
Once the Sandy Hook tragedy and aftermath began to die down, we have convened on the phone as needed to share information on relevant school safety legislation. This year, the primary legislation so far that addresses school safety is the ESEA reauthorization. Since there are already working groups focused on this massive education bill, and issues related to STPP are relatively small within the larger bill, it seems duplicative to discuss this advocacy work within this school safety working group. There is a lot of overlap across the groups. Instead, we wonder if the group would like to switch from monthly calls to occasional/ as needed calls.
The nexus between juvenile justice, mental health, and education is important. Please let Kaitlin & me know your thoughts – if there is a group consensus to continue regular meetings, we can schedule those. Either way, we would like to keep the list serve as active as folks would like it to be, so we hope folks will please feel free to share information on this unmoderated list even though we are not currently meeting regularly. We will also keep the listserv active so that we can be prepared to reconvene as needed.
Thanks!
Ashley and Kaitlin
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