Message from the Director

Since the creation of the U.S. Secret Service in 1865, the agency has evolved to meet changing mission demands and growing threats in our nation.

To ensure we remain on the forefront, the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) was created in 1998 to provide guidance and training on threat assessment both within the U.S. Secret Service and to others with criminal justice and public safety responsibilities.

Today, the highly skilled men and women of the U. S. Secret Service lead the field of threat assessment by conducting research on acts of targeted violence and providing training using the agency’s established threat assessment model for prevention.

Our agency is dedicated to expanding research and understanding of targeted violence, including those that impact our nation’s schools.

Since the creation of the U.S. Secret Service’s NTAC, we have provided 450 in-depth trainings on the prevention of targeted school violence to over 93,000 attendees including school administrators, teachers, counselors, mental health professionals, school resource officers, and other public safety partners.

Our agency, through our local U.S. Secret Service field offices, continues to coordinate and provide this training to our community partners.

The tragic events of the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the May 18, 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, demonstrated the ongoing need to provide leadership in preventing future school attacks.

As such, the U.S. Secret Service, along with many of our partners, have redoubled our efforts and are poised to continue enhancing school safety.

Keeping our school children safe requires the shared commitment from states, school boards, and communities with the ability to dedicate resources to this critical issue.

In the wake of these tragedies, the U.S. Secret Service has launched an initiative to provide updated research and guidance to school personnel, law enforcement, and other public safety partners on the prevention of school-based violence. I am pleased to release this operational guide, Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model, as the first phase of this initiative.

As we have seen in recent months, the pain of each act of targeted violence in our nation’s schools has had a powerful impact on all.

With the creation and distribution of this operational guide, the U.S. Secret Service sets a path forward for sustainable practices to keep our children safe, extending our expertise in the field of threat assessments to provide school officials, law enforcement personnel, and other public safety professionals with guidance on “how to” create a Targeted Violence Prevention Plan.

This guide will serve as an important contribution to our partners on the Federal Commission on School Safety - the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the Attorney General.

I am proud of the continued efforts of the U.S. Secret Service, and we remain committed to the prevention of targeted violence within our nation’s schools and communities.