The 2-day training session was conducted in collaboration with the National Association of School Resource Officers’ Project Unite.
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BURLINGTON, MA — The Burlington Police Department announced that it hosted a two-day training session last month designed to help prevent school violence and self-harm.
“Project Unite: Four Integrated Systems for School Violence Prevention” took place April 20-21 at Grandview Farm in Burlington.
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The training, which was conducted in collaboration with the National Association of School Resource Officers’ (NASRO) Project Unite, focused on the prevention of violence by educating multi-disciplinary teams of police, clinicians and school staff.
Among the other law enforcement agencies attending the training were: the Tewksbury Police Department, Fitchburg Police Department and Babson College Police Department.
According to Burlington police representatives, the training focused on four areas: building and maintaining a positive school culture and climate, bystander reporting and response, information sharing, and behavioral threat and suicide assessment and management.
The sessions featured special guest speakers Mo Canady, executive director of NASRO, and Michelle Gay, the co-founder of Safe and Sound Schools, whose daughter Josephine died in the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.
“This training was invaluable to our efforts to prevent school violence and self-harm,” Burlington Police Chief Thomas Browne said. “We are always working to be prepared for incidents of school violence, but this training will also help us work with our community partners to prevent violence from occurring and to keep our students safe from all threats.”
Browne continued: “We are grateful to the Department of Justice COPS Office, and NASRO for allowing us to host this vital learning experience, and we are grateful to Mo Canady and Michelle Gay for sharing their experience and expertise as well.”
Representing Burlington at the training sessions were: Lt. Glen Mills, Vito Costa and Dominic Calicchio, both school resource officers, Karen DiRienzo, a mental health clinician, and Christine Shruhan, the executive director at Burlington Youth and Family Services.
The tuition for the Burlington attendees was funded by a grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), according to the Burlington PD.
