Threat Assessment Teams

Even if your threat assessment team doesn’t have any cases to discuss, it’s imperative to meet routinely. Routine meetings provide the opportunity to become familiar with everyone’s strengths, weaknesses, limitations, and capabilities. Some ideas for meetings when cases are lacking: Get guest speakers to provide training to your team. Conduct tabletop exercises where you develop a realistic fact pattern and have the team work the case to a logical conclusion. Conduct mock subject/person of concern interview. Brief the team on the latest research. Provide a Cliff’s Notes overview of the facts and findings. Conduct a review of policy and procedures. Brief stakeholders on the team’s purpose, methodology, and behavior to report. Conduct team building focused exercises. Invite mobile crisis, co-response, other threat assessment teams for a meet and greet. Attend an Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) in person or virtual meeting. These are just a few examples of things to do when it’s slow. The goal is to ensure that that team is the best that it can be when it counts.

To understand, assess, and prevent workplace violence, here’s an excellent, almost lost, research-based guide for organizations that have (or plan to develop) an insider risk evaluation team. It’s the 2022 Structured Professional Judgment (SPJ) Tools Reference Guide https://lnkd.in/g_AEuqcK Workplace violence events often reveal that, prior to an incident, the perpetrator exhibited behaviors and communications of concern. However, security, HR, and other staff either failed to recognize the potential threat or failed to take effective action to mitigate the risk of violence. This guide provides an overview of violence risk assessment along with descriptions and evaluations of six popular tools for Violence Risk Assessment (VRA) and Threat Assessment (TA): •      Historical Clinical Risk Management-20, Version 3 (HCR-20V3) •      Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START ) •      Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide, Version 3 (SARA-V3) •      Workplace Assessment of Violence Risk-21, Version 3 (WAVR-21 V3) •      Terrorism Radicalization Assessment Protocol-18 (TRAP-18) •      Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER) The SPJ Guide was developed by PERSEREC (where I was the Director until the U.S. Gov closed the research center and removed the website where this guide and other useful resources were publicly available). Because the SPJ guide is open-source, I am happy to make it available again in honor of the 4th and final week of National Insider Threat Awareness Month, which begins on Sept 22nd, 2025.

School Violence Doesn’t Start with a Bang—It Starts with Missed Signs School safety goes beyond cameras and drills. Real prevention begins when your team is trained to recognize and address threats before they escalate. Here’s how to build a frontline defense: ✅ Train to See the Unseen – Equip staff to spot patterns, not just red flags: sudden isolation, violent writings, or escalating aggression. ✅ Threat Assessment Teams – Schools using structured threat assessments see over 90% of threats de-escalated early (FBI research). ✅ Anonymous Reporting = Game Changer – Trustworthy reporting systems increase tips from students. ✅ It’s Not Profiling—It’s Protecting – Focus on behavior, not background. Most attackers leak their plans beforehand. The Hard Truth: Lockdowns save lives, but prevention saves futures. Invest in training now to avoid the long-term cost of trauma recovery. 📌 Your Move: Audit your school’s safety protocols. If your team can’t name the top 3 warning signs, let’s connect. DM me to discuss how you can improve your threat prevention strategy. #SchoolSafety #StopTheSignals #ThreatManagement #BehavioralRiskAssessment #Prevention (Sources: U.S. Secret Service, NCSS)

It's time for healthcare to adopt a threat assessment and management approach to prevent targeted violence. Targeted violence is planned violence that is focused on a particular person(s), group(s), or location(s). It's not the impulsive, reactive violence we see nearly every day in the hospital setting. We have opportunities to disrupt someone on the path to targeted violence. ↳ This could be an employee, patient, visitor, or external threat actor. ↳ We should exploit these opportunities with well-trained teams, structured professional judgement tools, processes, and other resources. The ultimate goal: long-term safety. If you don't have a threat assessment and management team/program, ...if you don't have training in this specialized area, ...or if your assessments aren't evidence-based, your organization is at risk. PS- How are you mitigating targeted violence risk? ⤴️ Want more great healthcare violence insights and strategies?  Sign up for my monthly newsletter - The Healthcare Violence Report - using the link under my name above.