Symposium in Wilmington focuses on school violence

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Officials from the State Departments of Justice, Health and Human services, and Public Safety hosted “School Violence Prevention and Response Symposium”.

The idea is to get various agencies all on the same page.

The symposium was held at the New Hanover County Government Center Friday with presentations of proactive approaches to prevent violence in schools.

Law enforcement, first responders, mental health providers and many others from all over southeastern North Carolina gathered together in a room to discuss effective ways to address bullying and ways to identify and respond to mental health needs.

Kym Martin is the Executive Director of NC Center of Safer Schools and she said, “A shooting is probably would be the worst case scenario that we would be dealing with, but just the day-to-day bullying that might go on, wanting to prevent that and wanting to work with those episodes in school and to prepare schools for incidents that could occur.”

NC Center of Safer Schools Interim Deputy Director Mike Anderson is a former school resource officer and he said,”The biggest thing is prevention and playing the what if game. What if an active shooter came into our school or came in our classroom, what we are trying to get teachers to do and administrators to do is to set outside of the policy board and to start thinking tacitly and critically.”

Officials say their goal is to bridge the gap between the different professions that deal with school safety.