Everybody Needs a Vacation - Even in Threat Assessment

 It's "summertime, and the livin' is easy"*....or at least it should be.  But if you serve on a threat assessment team, summertime may not mean the vacations and downtime it means for many people.  Threats and disturbing behavior can occur anytime, and they often require a quick evaluation and rapid intervention.  Being on a threat assessment team can mean working on weekends, over vacations, and late into the night.  

But this does not mean that team members or individual threat managers cannot take a break.  Quite the contrary:  threat assessment team members NEED to take a break every so often.  Threat assessment work is important work. It is often urgent or time sensitive.  And threat assessment work can be a matter of life and death -- literally.  It is this "life and death" aspect of threat assessment and protective intelligence that can make it hard to justify taking a vacation.  But it is precisely what makes taking a break so critical.

My colleagues and I have worked with several threat assessment teams that - to put it bluntly - were burnt out.  In some cases the team members were managing sizable caseloads. In other cases, the team members were juggling their threat assessment responsibilities with the demands of their busy day jobs.  Regardless of the reason for burn out, some ways to help guard against it can include:

• adding "term limits" into a team's policies or procedures, so that individual team members have to rotate off the team every so often; 
• identifying and training alternates for each team member - individuals who are ready to step in and serve on the team for a week - or two - or three -- when needed; and, 
• encouraging team members to look after each other with care - and to say something if they think a fellow team member might need a break.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey discusses the parable of the goose and the golden egg, to illustrate that you can fail in your work if you fail to take good care of yourself at the same time. I think it's a lesson that's particularly appropriate for threat assessment team members to heed.  Enjoy your summer.

- Marisa R. Randazzo, Ph.D.
* Lyrics from "Summertime" by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin

Meeting Murder or Overreacting?

Peter Romary, Senior Consultant with Sigma Threat Management, writes about the need for effective, proven threat management techniques, threat managers, and processes to avoid serious mistakes! Read More "I met Murder on the way He had a face like Castleraegh"

Threat Assessment Q & A

By Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD and Gene Deisinger, PhD

In the course of our seminars and consulting work, we often get questions that we think could be helpful for others to hear. So we have started a new series of blog posts – each labeled “Threat Assessment Q&A” -- to answer these questions and to correct common misunderstandings about threat assessment that appear in the media and elsewhere.  We posted our first Threat Assessment Q & A on March 6, 2011 (click here to read it).

If you have a question about behavioral threat assessment and threat management -- on campus, in the workplace, for public officials and public figures, or in any other domain – please email it to us at Info@SigmaTMA.com and include "Threat Assessment Q&A" in the subject line.  We'll answer some questions and open others up for discussion and debate.  As a reminder, we have guidelines for posting comments on this blog.  Out of respect for all who read and comment here, please make sure you adhere to these guidelines before posting a comment or submitting a question.  Look for more Threat Assessment Q&A posts in the coming weeks.

Threat Assessment Q&A: “Should Counseling Center Staff Conduct ‘Direct Threat’ or ‘Fitness for Duty’ Evaluations?”

By Gene Deisinger, PhD; Jeff Pollard, PhD & Marisa Randazzo, PhD

The question we received this week came from a training session on college/university threat assessment that we conducted in San Diego at the beginning of February 2011. A staff psychologist at a college counseling center asked us:  

Q: “Is it advisable for a college or university to have its counseling center psychologists or psychiatrists conduct "Fitness to Stay" or “Fitness for Re-entry” evaluations on students (both types are evaluations are similar to Fitness for Duty evaluations conducted on employees), and “Direct Threat” evaluations on students or employees”?  

A: While psychologists and psychiatrists on staff at college/university counseling centers may be qualified to conduct such assessments, we recommend that institutions think through several issues before asking this of their mental health professionals.

The first issue is that psychologists’ and psychiatrists’ training do not typically include the skills required for conducting such evaluations -- so colleges and universities should insure that the professional in question has demonstrated post-graduate training, supervised practice, and experience in conducting the evaluations. The professional standards for forensic evaluators or forensic psychologists/psychiatrists are good baselines for measuring the competence and/or setting out training/experience guidelines for someone whose position requires they conduct such evaluations. To be competent, examiners do not have to be certified at the forensic level; however they must possess the necessary training and hands-on experience.

The second issue is the impact that using counseling center staff as evaluators could have on the counseling center’s reputation on campus. Most counseling centers build their reputation and relationship with students as being a service for the students and may actively or implicitly have some advocacy role on behalf of student needs. Conducting evaluations that can negatively impact upon a student's status – that is, on a student’s ability to stay or enter the institution -- often raise concerns (on behalf of students and some faculty/staff) as to whether the center is a true support/advocate for students. While this can be addressed in terms of HOW the services are provided and how they are discussed in the community, it still raises concerns in which many centers choose not to involve themselves. Also, as most of these evaluations are mandated by the college or university as a contingency of enrollment, some centers are reluctant to involve themselves in mandated services. It would be fair to say that there is a good deal of controversy on this question as some professionals/centers do not view mandated services as consistent with counseling center philosophy and a few would go so far as to suggest it is unethical (a view we understand but do not necessarily hold).

Finally, when such evaluations are done internal to the institution - i.e., by a component of the university -- it raises a reasonable question as to the independence, autonomy, and objectivity of the evaluator. It may be reasonable for the person being evaluated to question findings presented by an internal evaluator because the evaluator is an employee or agent of the university and could be assumed (rightly or wrongly) to provide only conclusions that are in line with the university’s stance. Evaluations that are conducted by an external psychologist or psychiatrist make that argument of bias a bit harder to make, presuming the independent evaluator conducts a fair, thorough and objective evaluation.

The last issue we want to raise is that, with respect to high risk evaluations or ones in which there is a fair amount of ambiguity, we find it very helpful to have an objective, independent view from outside the university that either validates our views (from internal evaluations or the threat assessment process) or challenges misperceptions that we may have formed or provides information we could have overlooked. In essence, it can create a check and balance on the institution’s internal decision-making.

While none of these issues would legally prohibit a college or university from using someone on staff to conduct these evaluations, these concerns make it less ideal for an institution to do so internally. We want to be clear that our comments are only in regard to true assessment of dangerousness and fitness for duty evaluations (including fitness to stay and fitness for re-entry evaluations) and are not related to the types of evaluations that college health/counseling services provide routinely -- including intake/diagnostic screening and screening whether someone may benefit from involvement in mental health services -- for which counseling center staff members are highly competent and appropriate.  

College & University Threat Assessment Training - February 1 and 8

In the past few weeks we've received many questions about threat assessment training for higher education institutions.  There are two training sessions coming up in early February that are open to the public: 

February 1 in San Diego CA ($300 per person).  This training is part of a multi-day conference on campus and workplace violence prevention, featuring some of the top experts in the field of threat assessment and threat management.  Please click here for more information and registration details.

February 8 in Tallahassee FL (FREE).  This training is the LAST of ten regional campus threat assessment seminars that have been sponsored by the US Department of Justice COPS Office, and coordinated by Margolis Healy & Associates throughout the US in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  Please click here for more information or to register.  This seminar is open only to personnel at higher education institutions.

If you can't make it to one of these workshops, more information on threat assessment training is available here.

Before You Post a Comment on this Blog....

We encourage you to read the following guidelines before leaving a comment about any post, or about any other comment, on this blog:

Guidelines for Posting a Comment on Current Issues in Threat Assessment & Threat Management

We welcome all thoughts and comments that are related to threat assessment, threat management, violence prevention, and personal safety - as well as debate sparked by incidents of targeted violence or other current events, as long as the commentary is related in some manner to threat assessment, violence prevention, or personal safety.  If you have a comment or reaction to one of our posts, a question you'd like to pose, or a topic that you suggest we cover, we encourage you to post a comment.

We reserve the right to delete any comment that uses expletives or obscene language, or that includes any personal attack or derogatory commentary directed at a particular individual or group.

When you leave a comment, we strongly encourage you to identify yourself by name or at least by first name and last initial.  If you are a fellow professional in the field of threat assessment, threat management, or behavioral intervention, we ask that -- as a professional courtesy -- you identify yourself using your full name and preferably indicate your relationship to the threat assessment community (e.g., your university affiliation; your firm's name; etc.) whenever you post a comment.  If you have a sensitive or confidential comment or question - or anything else you would prefer not to post in the publicly-viewable comments - please feel free to email us directly at Info@SigmaTMA.com.

Any comment that, in our judgment, doesn't adhere to these guidelines will be removed.

In the spirit of Peter Romary's post, we encourage everyone who posts and comments here to be civil and respectful of all the opinions voiced. This is an important area of practice, and one that is under continual development and improvement. I encourage all of us to strive to raise the bar in the field of threat assessment and violence prevention, through our behavior as well as our work.

The Tucson Blame Game: Time To Dial Back The Rhetoric

Published in "The True Verdict" Blog, Peter Romary, a Senior Consultant for Sigma Threat Management, calls for more concern and support for victims and less speculative, inflammatory rhetoric in the wake of the recent shootings. Visit the blog here.

MORE Free Threat Assessment Training

In January and February we will be teaching two FREE, day-long campus threat assessment seminars.  These seminars are the last two that will be provided free of charge to higher education personnel through a generous grant from the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office.  The last two seminars will be held in Phoenix, AZ (on January 11) and in Tallahassee, FL (on February 8).

If you haven't had a chance to attend one of these sessions, and you work for a college or university, you can click here to register or for more information. In the seminars, we:

• Provide an overview of campus threat assessment & management
• Compare threat assessment with profiling and other assessment approaches
• Explain the steps in the threat assessment process, key investigative questions, and evaluation decisions
• Provide coaching on developing case management strategies; and,
• Discuss strategies for creating and operating an effective a campus threat assessment team.

Since 2009, the COPS Office has made this training available to higher education personnel at cities around the U.S., including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Sioux Falls, and Washington DC.  We are honored to have been part of the team involved in creating the curriculum for this training and in providing the training to participants around the country.  Come join us for one of these last seminars!

How to Find a Good Threat Assessment Consultant: 5 Questions to Ask Before You Hire

Let's face it, security can be big business -- and that means it can attract some vendors who aren't all that they claim to be.  After mass tragedies, we have seen unqualified folks come out of the woodwork and announce that they are "experts" in one security area or another.  This is certainly true in the area of behavioral threat assessment and threat management.

Businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and high-profile individuals may look to hire a behavioral threat assessment consultant when they are faced with a death threat, a stalking situation, or some other disturbing behavior.  They may seek out threat assessment training if they want to learn how to respond appropriately to threats and troubling behavior – or if they are looking to start a threat assessment team.  Threat assessment consultants and instructors are hired for their ability to evaluate threats and craft strategies to effectively reduce or minimize the risk…and in the case of training, their ability to teach others to do the same.

But how can you tell whether your threat assessment consultant or instructor is truly qualified?  Here are 5 questions to ask -- ideally before you hire a consultant or sign up for a course:

1. “How much direct experience do you have in investigating, evaluating, and/or managing individual threat cases?”   While there is no hard and fast rule, we think that it takes a good 7-10 years of experience working on threat cases (depending on the level of direct involvement) before a person has truly developed a level of expertise in threat assessment and management.  Preferably they should have received all, or at least some, of their experience from a structured work setting such as a law enforcement agency, security service, forensic mental health program, or established campus or workplace threat assessment program where they could learn from others with more experience in the field.  Ideally, at least some of the consultant’s /instructor’s experience should be directly relevant to your environment – meaning that if you are concerned about workplace threats, your consultant’s direct experience comes at least in part from workplace threat cases .  As with any potential hire, check your would-be consultant's or instructor’s claims about experience by calling references and asking around about their reputation.

2. “Give me examples of the different types of cases you have handled, and what you found that worked effectively to address some of those situations.”  What you are looking for is a broad range of experience and the ability to offer details on some specific situations or cases.  A good threat assessment consultant (or instructor) should be able to describe their involvement on a wide array of cases, including threats of harm to others, harm to self, stalking (cyber- or regular), harassment, and others.  A good threat assessment consultant should also be able to provide specific examples of interventions or case management strategies they put into place that worked to reduce risk or improve the overall safety of the situation.  Beware of a consultant or instructor who cannot provide some specific examples - or who hides behind claims of privacy instead of answering this question.  There is no need for them to name names -- but they should at least be able to share with you the sanitized facts of some cases and how the situations were resolved.   Threat assessment consultants with sufficient case experience always have a few good stories to tell - about cases that fascinated them or solutions that worked particularly well.

3. “Tell me about your most challenging case, or about an intervention that did not work well and what you did to resolve that situation?”  Qualified threat assessment consultants and instructors often get to be good because they have learned from their experiences -- good and bad -- throughout their career.  Their answer should tell you how the consultant has learned from his or her mistakes and what they ultimately did to fix a particular problem.  It will also tell you how creative or resourceful they are when faced with a challenging problem.  Beware of any threat assessment consultant or instructor who claims never to have made a mistake.  Either they don't have as much experience as they are claiming - or they are not being truthful in their response.

4. “What will your references say is your greatest strength?  Your biggest weakness?”  There is no one "right" answer to these questions, but the consultant's answers will give you some insight into how well-suited they may be for your particular needs.  For example, a consultant who writes lengthy reports and takes months to do so may not be well-suited for an operationally-focused organization that needs to make decisions quickly.  A consultant who uses a lot of jargon may sound impressive but may not be able to translate their expertise into information or recommendations you can actually use.

5. “Who can verify your credentials?”  Although it takes some additional time, we strongly recommend asking for - and then checking with - at least two references provided by the consultant or instructor.  A reference who includes qualifiers in their commentary (e.g. "usually good; "basically offered helpful advice;" "generally responsive to our requests") should be questioned a bit further on negatives or instances of problems with the consultant.  We also recommend verifying claims about education – what degrees the consultant or instructor says they have and from where.  We know of some consultants who introduce themselves as “Dr.” but never earned a degree that would allow them to use that title.  A quick call to the institution where the consultant claims to have gotten their degree will let you know for sure.

Above all, keep in mind that a threat assessment consultant is someone you may have to hire to help you handle a potentially dangerous or even-life threatening situation.  It is important to take time to vet them as thoroughly as possible – ideally before a crisis arises.  Identifying and screening potential consultants before you are faced with an imminent situation will allow you sufficient time to verify claims and check with references.  If a crisis eventually occurs, you'll be able to secure the well-qualified help you need quickly and confidently.

Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD & Gene Deisinger, PhD are lead authors of The Handbook for Campus Threat Assessment & Management Teams.

NEWS: Anti-Bullying Legislation Proposed in Congress

This week two federal legislators introduced a bill in Congress that would require colleges and universities that receive federal funding to implement anti-bullying/anti-harassment policies.  According to an article in The Star-Ledger, the legislation would also provide funding for colleges and universities in the U.S. to start anti-bullying programs on campus.  The legislation, known as the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist, NJ) and in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).

The legislation is named for Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who committed suicide in September by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and another classmate allegedly used a webcam to film Clementi in a private encounter with another man in his dorm room and publicize it to others via social media channels.  Clementi's suicide sparked international commentary about bullying and harassment, including an emotional speech by a Forth Worth city councilman Joel Burns about his personal experiences being bullied that received widespread attention and prompted similar commentary from individuals around the world.