Annual lecture 2009

In the Annual Social Research Unit lecture at the Commonwealth Society, Elliott talked about the knee-jerk responses to crises, and how they seldom lead to better outcomes. After the Columbine disaster there was a lot of target hardening, such as metal detectors. We are turning some of our school into fortresses remarked Elliott. That is not healthy for childrens development. In fact, in the Virginia Tech shooting, the security served to make some students captive for the gunman.

Del Elliot presented at the Royal Commonwealth Society on July 2nd 2009.

The presentation, reported in todays edition of Prevention Action, and summarised in the slides below, put a lot of consideration into the kinds of efforts -such as a hotlines for people to report their concerns- that can helpfully sit around evidence based programs.

He ended by asking whether, 10 billion dollars and a decade later, are schools safer? Most of the money has gone into hardware, like the metal detectors.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• evidence based
• columbine
• prevention