STEP 6: Promote Continuous Improvement and a Culture of Prevention

Preventing targeted violence does not end with the establishment of a BTAU.

The agency should develop strategic efforts to promote a community culture that invites partner agencies into the behavioral threat assessment process, prioritizes relationship building and information sharing, and empowers community members to recognize and report concerning behaviors.

Conducting outreach to educate partner agencies and community members will help to establish trust and invite participation.

The BTAU should also focus on continual programmatic evaluation and improvement.

The best practice for achieving any goal involves continuous self-evaluation and improvement.

BTAUs should identify ways of utilizing data to inform program evaluation and strategy development.

For example, the BTAU could assess if bystander reporting increases in response to a focused public messaging campaign.

Similarly, the BTAU could evaluate if multiagency training activities increase the responsiveness of partner agencies during the assessment and management of individuals of concern.

BTAUs will want to be aware of any programmatic strengths or weaknesses and should adapt their procedures appropriately.

If resources allow, BTAUs could consider enlisting external expertise to assist with the technical aspects of program evaluation.

Another key component of program evaluation involves fidelity assessments, or evaluations to determine if the program is being implemented as intended.

While it would be very difficult to measure if a BTAU was responsible for preventing an act of targeted violence, it is possible to measure the BTAU’s internal practices and systems that are meant to reduce the likelihood of an attack.

For example, the BTAU might evaluate whether their program has resulted in increased access to counseling and mental health services for individuals reported to the police department. Such a measure could be part of how the BTAU evaluates its consistency in coordinating interventions to address individual needs.

Other methods for assessing fidelity could involve tracking case documentation accuracy, consistency, and/or quality in alignment with established protocols.

Fidelity data such as these could, for example, help a unit manager explore more efficient practices for case processing if the BTAU is routinely exceeding established timeframes for completing assessments.

After-action reviews allow for another type of program evaluation. Here BTAUs can meet to revisit past cases, identifying which portions of assessment and management worked well and what areas show a need for improvement.

Through this process, BTAUs may identify success stories to share with relevant community partners, in accordance with any applicable privacy restrictions, to enhance awareness of the BTAU and promote engagement.

Moreover, the field of behavioral threat assessment continues to evolve, and the body of research defining best practices continues to grow. As such, BTAUs will require both an awareness of new research and the internal capacity to adapt procedures to align with the latest advancements in the field.

The relationships between the BTAU and its partner community systems are critical to the prevention of targeted violence.

In addition to sharing prevention resources across agencies and organizations, outreach will also promote the BTAU as a resource to those external systems when they are confronted with situations that elicit concern for safety.

Therefore, it benefits the BTAU when agencies and organizations across the community know where they can go for help.

Community systems that require proactive outreach from the BTAU include: • government agencies, • other law enforcement agencies, • businesses, • K-12 schools, • colleges and universities, • houses of worship, • mental health providers, • social service agencies, and • nonprofit service organizations.

Agency outreach can begin simply by hosting meetings between the BTAU and partner organizations. During the meetings, the BTAU can explain who they are, the purpose of behavioral threat assessment, how agencies can contact the BTAU to report individuals of concern, and what happens after reports are received.

The BTAU should emphasize that while they are a law enforcement entity, their primary objective in conducting behavioral threat assessments is prevention, and their approach is focused on facilitating proactive intervention with the individual of concern while achieving a positive outcome for the individual and the community.

As community relationships develop over time, the BTAU may choose to host training events, tabletop exercises, and other interactive engagements alongside partner organizations to promote a community culture of prevention. These types of proactive engagements help to ensure that multiagency collaboration does not occur for the first time in the midst of a crisis.

For example, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) Threat Management Division conducts weekly meetings with outside agencies and organizations who have a role in their threat management process.

Weekly meetings are attended by representatives from groups including: • State Attorney’s Office (for adults), • State Attorney’s Office (for juveniles), • Mental Health Unit (law enforcement), • Crisis Response Specialist (mental health practitioner) , • Habitual Offender Monitoring Enforcement (HOME),

Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), • State Probation Office, • School resource officers, • School districts, • Community mental health providers, and • Involuntary mental health intake facilities.

When the Secret Service published research on averted school attack plots, the study affirmed that targeted violence is preventable when communities identify warning signs and intervene.

In nearly every averted school plot examined, tragedy was prevented by members of the community coming forward when they observed behaviors that elicited concern.

Bystander reporting is paramount to the success of the BTAU and should be the focus of community outreach efforts.

Public messaging campaigns should reach various community members with clear messaging about what concerns to report and how.

Billboards and posters in high-traffic and public areas can help to promote the simple message of reporting safety concerns to a centralized place.

A dedicated website can provide more detailed information about the BTAU’s role and can reiterate to the public the unit’s primary objective of violence prevention through early intervention, not criminal prosecution.

One example of public messaging is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “If You See Something, Say Something®” campaign. This is a national campaign with the mission to raise public awareness around recognizing signs of suspicious activity that may indicate a potential nexus to terrorism, as well as how to report this activity to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

For this campaign, DHS creates and disseminates public outreach materials, co-brands materials with partners, releases public service announcements, and develops strategic partnerships with public and private organizations who help amplify the message in their communities.

Fostering a climate of trust is equally vital to bystander reporting. Research shows that trust influences a bystander’s willingness to report threats.

When the public perceives law enforcement as fair, transparent, and respectful, they are more trusting of the process and more willing to offer information that could help.