The Safety Doc Podcast

Dr. David Perrodin talks to Joe Bruzzese about “The Westlake” summit and centers a dynamic conversation of the bold steps participants took to advance a new school safety agenda that truly serves the best interests of students. Forget the typical school safety conference about binders and drills! This forward-thinking discussion is of incredible importance to everyone, but especially educators or parents of the 50 million children that attend school in America each day! Joe Bruzzese is the CEO of Sprigeo, the nation’s leader in online reporting systems for safety threats, bullying incidents and self-harm. He’s also taught graduate courses at UC-Santa Barbara, authored the book “A Parent’s guide to the Middle Years” - which is available on Amazon. As a former school administrator and current parent of two teens he's covered all his bases when it comes to schools and safety. In the fall of 2016, Joe invited a dozen of America’s top K-12 school leaders to a special “focus-group action summit” called “The Westlake”. Reflecting upon that epic “meeting of the top minds”, Joe believes that those three days in California launched a fresh safety narrative for schools across the country and explains how that innovative blueprint will be further honed by a second gathering of the country’s most prolific school leaders. OTHER FORMATS: You can also listen to this podcast on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ This podcast can be watched on YouTube https://youtu.be/VAGZ1Qn9xK0 FOLLOW ME: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to this YouTube channel and the SoundCloud RSS feed. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com I will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails. SPRIGEO WEBSITE: www.sprigeo.com

David centers this episode on analyzing three recent school safety mass media articles to reveal how sensationalized headings fail to match the content of the articles, thus creating a disservice to readers and further eroding public trust in the mainstream media's ability to accurately report safety news. Dr. Perrodin identifies the authors’ biases and specifically exposes their attempts to deploy fear narratives to persuade the public toward accepting rhetoric that schools are in a default status of “unsafe” and the antidotes are in the forms of legislation, obscure software or genetically modifying humans to be stress-resistant flesh machines shielded from the horrors of trauma. HEADLINE #1: Representative Massive (R-Ky.) Wants to Repeal Gun-Free School Zones Act by Brian Doherty [reason.com/blog] (January 5, 2017). “Gun-Free School Zones” signs grow in the boulevards of every school in America. Invasive - and impervious to weed wackers! They’ve been stoutly rooted since 1990. The article states (per quote from Rep. Massie): “Gun-free school zones are ineffective.” Yeah, I agree. Everyone agrees. The bill doesn’t deter school shooters, much like a non-smoking sign won’t discourage an arsonist. The bill was a paper tiger and it’s not like we don’t have laws against committing homicide. So yes, by all means, trash the GFSZA! However, Rep. Massie goes on to make a statement that simply isn’t true. “They [GFSZA] make people less safe by inviting criminals into target rich, no-risk environments and prevent law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves, and create vulnerable populations that are targeted by criminals.” Yikes. No, Rep. Massie. Repealing the bill won’t be like Gotham welcoming back Batman. Nothing will change except it will be easier to mow the school boulevard. HEADLINE #2: D.C. online watchdog group spots Wisconsin school threat on Twitter by Savanna Tomei [WKOW 27] (January 14, 2017). This is a terrific example of an advertisement pretending to be an article. You’ll be amazed at what I uncovered after exploring “The Tactical Institute” website – the self-funded “group” (schools must pay for its services) that, per its website “monitors the entire Web for threats to our clients", including something referred to as “The Dark Web” which apparently is so secretive that is undetectable by search engines. FYI - "Dark" is a persuasion word - it is intended to frighten you. Per its website, TI appears to have a knack for facilitating inter-agency networking – even though, as I clarify, such provisions are already provided to law enforcement agencies via the ‘The USA PATRIOT ACT’ (which I talk about). HEADLINE #3: Preventing Mental Illness With a Stress Vaccine by Danielle Elliot [The Atlantic] (November 26, 2016). The headline’s claim is absurd and a complete mismatch from the article which unfortunately bends immune system research being conducted, in part, by Dr. Rebecca Brachman. Dr. Brachman was a student at Columbine High School during the infamous 1999 shooting. She has devoted her life toward better understanding stress, the immune system and mental health. The deductions penned by the article’s author are beyond sensationalism – they are hurtful to persons suffering from PTSD, such as rescue workers and soldiers, as it is implied that one day a simple vaccine will create an “ideal world” where people would be immune from debilitating trauma-induced mental health conditions. Did I mention that current clinical trials involve 12 mice? OTHER FORMATS: You can also view this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/EN8FYPemsiQ or listen on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ FOLLOW ME: On Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel and the SoundCloud RSS feed. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com I will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails.

Schools are very collaborative organizations and seek to represent the contexts in which they are rooted. However, school leaders must maintain the distinct purpose of advisory groups, which are largely comprised of parents and community residents, as informing those that make decisions and not allow such groups to transform into a small group model which develops protocols and policies that are then vetted by school leaders and school boards. This over-stepping of “advisory” groups can have devastating consequences when applied to school safety practices. My purpose is to help you to understand the differences between an advisory group and small group model – knowledge that acquires a heightened relevance when a school contemplates its own potential response to a high-profile safety event, such as the Sandy Hook massacre. **You can read much more about this topic in a related post I made on 01-13-2017 to my safety BLOG (linked below)** OTHER FORMATS: You can also view this podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSTJ-tl5SIE or on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ FOLLOW ME: On Twitter @SafetyPhd and subscribe to this YouTube channel. DR. PERRODIN'S SAFETY BLOG: https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com I will respond to discussion thread comments or questions & also to emails.

A Contrarian’s Perspective of the Unconventional, Exceptional Rescue of 500,000 People. The following excerpt is from an article that will be published in School Business Affairs, February, 2017. ANYTHING YOU WANT, BUT NOT EVERYTHING YOU WANT: I worked with a school business manager who regularly reminded administrators and school board members that he could do anything that they wanted and not everything that they wanted. His moniker was especially relevant amongst the cyclonic opinions that school safety must center expensive fortifications. Regrettably, public perception about the issue is strongly influenced by field experts making recommendations often extremely disconnected from what has been revealed by empirical studies of the topic. Hysteria following the Sandy Hook massacre led to 450 school safety state-level legislative bills. Some bills called for the elimination of windows in schools or arming staff even though such measures were not validated by research findings. In fact, a large-scale study correlated the positive impact of natural sunlight in schools to students’ academic achievement. SCHOOL SAFETY IS HEURISTICS. School safety is about the process of identifying and maintaining heuristics. It’s knowing your options and keeping as many options on the table as possible. In most high-stakes safety situations, responders will be on scene within minutes and the incident command system will default to law enforcement. REFERENCES: Rosenstein, E. (2011). Boatlift [Motion picture]. United States: Eyepop Productions. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg Spillane, J. P., & Orlina, E. C. (2005). Investigating Leadership Practice: Exploring the Entailments of Taking a Distributed Perspective. Leadership & Policy In Schools, 4(3), 158. doi: 10.1080/15700760500244728; Weick, K., Sutcliffe, K., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing the Process of Sensemaking. Organizational Science, 16(4), p.409. OTHER FORMATS: You can also watch to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/1hKZ1XbiiEQ or on The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ FOLLOW ME. On Twitter @SafetyPhd and subscribe to this YouTube channel. DR. PERRODIN'S BLOG. https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/ SAFETY DOC WEBSITE: www.safetyphd.com

HAVE PURPOSE. LIVE LONGER & LIVE BETTER (and Live Safer?). It is well known that a purpose in life is a good thing to have. An abundance of research confirms that individuals who cultivate a meaningful sense of direction for themselves tend to live longer, experience better physical and mental health, and enjoy happier and more satisfying lives. WHAT IS PURPOSE? In a 2009 study, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) defined “purpose” as ‘tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and possess a sense of intentionality and goal-directedness that guides behavior’. Surprisingly, the NIH study also found that this definition was generalized across study participants. In other words, findings didn’t vary by age, sex, education or race! PURPOSE AND YOUTH: Based on this particularly favorable array of evidence linking purpose with quality of life, many practitioners and researchers suggest that purpose promotes positive youth development. Yet understanding how youth actually go about finding their purpose, and the consequences of doing so within the unique context of adolescence, remain targets for ongoing research. DAVID’S STORIES of PURPOSE. In this podcast, Dr. Perrodin examines evidence that purpose is an important resource that adolescents can use to successfully navigate challenges and even thrive during this period of the lifespan. He recounts finding purpose in his own life, from when he was a boy working a snow shovel late into the evening with his father clearing out driveways and sidewalks for veterans and widows to fostering community amongst folks attending a free community lunch. Smile as David re-tells an elderly man’s story of how orange juice dissolved metal processing equipment at a factory and pause to contemplate what role a sense of purpose might have in preventing harm to self or harm to others? A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR LINKING PURPOSE AND SAFETY. David describes a recently-concluded research study that found that high school seniors not only struggled to set career and other life goals, but also didn’t know how to set a goal, such as determining rationale, baseline and how to measure the goal. Dr. Perrodin hints for an agenda that places emphasis on teaching children and young adults how to set goals, and in turn, how to find purpose – a factor David feels is strongly linked to school safety (although, with regret, few studies have examined the link between purpose and safety for any population). OTHER FORMATS. You can also view to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/hZKmuXv0Y4U LISTEN LIVE ON RADIO. The 405 Media http://the405media.com/the-safety-doc/ FOLLOW ME. On Twitter @SafetyPhd and subscribe to "The Safety Doc" YouTube channel. DR. PERRODIN'S BLOG. https://crisisprepconsulting.wordpress.com/