Three Oregon educators and mental health professionals maintain that school violence is preventable through thoughtful connection, inclusion, relationship building, and meaningful, positive experiences in their new book, "Youth Violence Prevention: The Pathway Back through inclusion and Connection."

“It’s about the importance of staying objective, avoiding assumptions, eliminating prejudgment to examine potential violence through the eyes of the person considering that violence, and redirecting that person to constructive, nonviolent solutions, avoiding arrest, institutionalization or worse,” say the book’s authors.

Perfect for threat assessment professionals, school administrators, mental health workers, resource officers, law enforcement and others who work with schools, this book presents seven potentially violent K-12 student case scenarios as the students are identified from communication or behavior. It describes the process of collaborative assessment and intervention using the Salem-Keizer Cascade Preventive Behavioral Threat Assessment System, considered the “gold standard” in school violence prevention.