Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS)

1. Safe Schools/Healthy Students(SS/HS) The National Perspective

2. SS/HS Background • A unique Federal collaboration among the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice. • Created in 1999 in response to rising concerns about youth violence and school safety. • Has provided 3-year seed money grants to more than 200 schools and communities nationwide.

3. SS/HS Goals • Collaborate with local juvenile justice, law enforcement, and mental health agencies. • Promote the healthy development of school-age children. • Promote mental health and prevent violence in youth by using evidence-based programs with demonstrated long-term positive effects.

4. Six Core SS/HS Elements • Safe school environment. • Violence, alcohol, and other drug prevention and early intervention. • School and community mental health prevention and intervention services. • Early childhood psychosocial and emotional development services. • Supporting and connecting schools and communities. • Safe school policies.

5. SS/HS Is Working • Unprecedented collaboration at the Federal level among the three sponsoring agencies. • Strong partnerships forged in more than 200 communities nationwide. • Comprehensive and coordinated approaches to youth violence prevention provide models to other communities nationwide.

6. SS/HS Success Stories SS/HS Is Reducing Violence “You cannot learn in an environment where you have to fear for your life or fear for your physical safety. That is impossible. Likewise, healthy youth development promotes children who are anxious to learn, ready to learn, free to learn, and can be successful in the classroom. That is what we must have.”—Mary Dean Harvey, SS/HS Project Director, Omaha, NE

7. SS/HS Success Stories SS/HS Is Improving Academic Achievement “Everyone understands that it’s about school climate. Research shows that kids who feel valued in their schools do better academically, socially, mentally, and even athletically. So everything we did to change norms was in some way connected with promoting a valuing, nurturing, caring school environment.” —Dr. Michael Wells, Former SS/HS Project Director, Stokes County, NC

8. SS/HS Success Stories SS/HS Is Building Communities “The Pinnacle Program has touched every child, every mom, and every neighbor in the community. We have done so much in really infiltrating where our kids are in school, after school, evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays at church. Outreach is one of our powerful components.” —Julie Majors, SS/HS Project Director, Weslaco, TX

9. SS/HS Success Stories SS/HS Is Changing Lives “I feel like this has set the pace of what the future should be, for the way that the taxpayers’ money should be spent, the way we should get the most bang for our buck, and how we provide the best services possible to our students, to our community, and to our Nation as a whole if we all work together, and set that example.” —Marilyn Copeland, SS/HS Project Director, Jonesboro, AR

10. [Your Site Name Here] For more information about our local [insert your grant site name] SS/HS initiative, contact: [Contact name Address Phone number Fax number E-mail Web site address]