School Counselors’ Perceptions of School Shooting Causes and Protocols

ABSTRACT

In order to ascertain school counselors’ beliefs regarding the causes of and strategies for preventing school shootings, 50 school counselors participated in a qualitative survey. The survey used Content Analysis to organize and analyze the school counselors’ responses into themes that represented their beliefs about school shootings. Overwhelmingly, the school counselors supported the provision of counseling services as a means to prevent school shootings and also supported some school security measures, as well as educational interventions targeting relationship building. The relevance of these findings are discussed in relation to current research and position statements on the causes and prevention of school shootings.

KEYWORDS:

• School shooting
• school security
• shooting prevention
• school connections

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.