COMMUNITY MATTERS

Community Matters–Safe School Ambassadors Program

Rick Phillips, founder, featured speaker

 

Rick Phillips, founder of Community Matters, presented a program detailing the activities of the Safe School Ambassador Program which has been in place at Healdsburg Junior High since 2005.

 

Community Matters was started in 1996 following the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Its purpose is to “collaborate with schools and communities in creating safe and inclusive environments were all youth and adults thrive.” There has never been a greater need for programs that will reduce the violent climate and atmosphere that surrounds students in our schools. A grim statistic is that there have been 74 shootings at schools in the past 77 weeks. It may appear to the young people that this is the “norm”. Community Matters and their affiliate program, Safe School Ambassadors, teach skills that are having significant success in reducing those episodes of violence, as well as improving the climate for peaceful resolution of conflict in addition to developing strong citizenship models in elementary, middle and high school levels.

 

Safe School Ambassador Program identifies students who are viewed as opinion leaders and those that have the ability to recognize situations of physical or mental violence and the willingness and strength to stand up for the person who is being violated. Through their actions, they encourage other students to behave in a similar way. As a consequence, tolerance for traditional bullying, cyber bullying, and outright physical violence diminishes greatly. With the reduced incidence of these activities, fewer students are brought to disciplinary action that leads to expulsion or suspension from school.

 

The program teaches students to become aware of situations in which bullying and other violations are likely to occur, teaches them skills to intervene in a manner that is safe and which focuses on the model of good citizenship and community participation by the person that is responsible for the offense. By creating a culture in which each student is involved in his “community” people began to believe that they do not need to be simply bystanders when acts of violence are occurring, and that there are safe and effective ways of intervening to prevent the situation from escalating.

 

The students are taught to recognize situations that are “too big” for them to handle and they have a faculty person in their “family” with whom they can consult about a more intensive intervention if necessary.

 

Since instituting this program at the Healdsburg Junior High School, the number of detentions has dropped from 1,366 in 2005-6 to 43 in 2012-2013. Suspensions showed a similar drop from 445 down to 22 and office referrals went from 631 to 149. Not only does this save a significant amount of money for the schools that they were losing to diminished ADA, but it also signifies an improved state of “community” within those institutions were all members of the community feel that they have an active role to play and a positive input into making the school both safe and enjoyable.

 

The program is in place at over 1200 schools throughout the country. Over 60,000 students have been trained.

 

Mr. Powers is thankful for the continued Healdsburg Rotary Club-Sunrise support for this program.

 

Additional information may be found at their website, community-matters.org