This crisis response expert wants to teach Sudburians how to prevent violent tragedies in schools
'I wish this would have existed when I was in education,' says former Sudbury teacher Anna Barsanti
On April 28, 1999, just eight days after the Columbine school shooting, tragedy struck the small town of Taber, Alberta, when a similar event unfolded in the halls of W.R. Myers High School.
Since then, the expert who delivered the crisis response to the Taber school shooting is working to pass on what he's learned.
Kevin Cameron is the executive director of the North American Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response. He designed Canada's first comprehensive, multidisciplinary Violence Threat Risk Assessment training protocol.
On Tuesday night, Cameron will be hosted by the Violence Threat Risk Assessment Steering Committee in Sudbury, to deliver a talk on school and community safety.
Most dramatic is the guns but we're starting to see a lot more kids taking knives to school as well.— Kevin Cameron, North American Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response
"We do need to be concerned," Cameron said, "The pandemic has really intensified the anxiety of society overall."
As students have returned to in-classroom learning, Cameron said there has been an increased number of threat assessment cases.
"That means more kids threatening to bring a weapon," he said.
"Most dramatic is the guns but we're starting to see a lot more kids taking knives to school as well," he said, "We need to start to talking to our kids, what they've been up to and what's happened with them during the pandemic."
Cameron said he believes that communities can be prepared and prevent violent situations like that of the Taber school shooting and Columbine.
'Better safe than sorry'
"Most kids actually give us pre-incident signs and indicators prior to everything. From what they post online, what they say to peers and what they sometimes write in assignments and submit them to a teacher," he said.
"So we train professionals and others to collaborate. And we actually say, 'Better safe than sorry," Cameron said, "And we have taken weapons out of kids' hands, including guns, in this country. Of kids who are really close to doing something really bad."
He added that in his experience in dealing with crisis prevention in North America, he's noticed that Canadians have tended to collaborate better on these matters and as a result have managed to prevent more incidents from happening.
In 2019, 23 community partners signed on to the Community Threat Assessment Protocol. A collaborative partnership created to help prevent threats of violence in Sudbury. The protocol was first implemented in Sudbury in 2009, when there were just 10 community partners involved.
Anna Barsanti is the community coordinator with the Violence Threat Risk Assessment initiative in Sudbury.
Before she joined the committee, Barsanti worked with the Rainbow District School Board as a teacher for 30 years.
"When I first started learning about it, I thought, 'I wish this would have existed when I was in education," she said.
"And you need to understand that when I was in education I [was] not contending with what educators are contending with today and COVID added a whole new layer to that."
The virtual event will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening. Those who are interested can head to the Rainbow District School Board's Facebook page for more information.