About Us
Overview
| These are both dangerous and challenging times for young people, and yet exciting times as we now have developing technologies and programs to protect and empower our children. SAF A is a national resource for organizations featuring systems to better the lives of so many students across the country. Our initial areas of focus to best address these challenges and threats are in the areas of school safety, drug and alcohol abuse, and bullying in and around our schools. Connects stakeholders in school districts for innovative solutions. Facilitates access to resources to reduce violence, drugs, and bullying. Addresses the impact of the digital revolution on our children. Ensures a safer environment for our youth. Focuses on preventing self-destructive behaviors. Collaborates with dedicated entities and organizations. Aims to implement effective solutions for a safer America. |
Safer America for All, Inc (SAFA) is a national clearinghouse focused on relevant, innovative, and timely new ways to connect stakeholders in school districts to each other, while facilitating access to resources to reduce school violence, drugs, and bullying in schools and promoting school safety. The digital revolution has changed the world and with this new paradigm comes both opportunities, dangers and challenges. Never in history has the human mind been bombarded with as much information and as many influences, both positive and negative.
How is this digital revolution affecting and influencing our children? How is never escaping the watchful (and often scornful) eye of social/digital media shaping how our youth view and cope with the real world? Most cope well, however, some do not and fall prey to self-destructive solutions such as anti-social behaviors, drugs and violence.
SAFA is a clearinghouse of entities and organizations dedicated to finding solutions and to assist in providing resources to implement those solutions.
Stakeholders may include administrators and other school staff; school resource officers; students; parents; drug and school violence school safety researchers, organizations, and training providers. The resources provided will focus on evidence-based programs, organizations, best practices, threat assessments and various school safety technologies and programs available for schools and community organizations to utilize and implement into their school safety efforts.
Additionally, SAFA has identified SAFA acts as a national model addressing school violence and school safety through providing new ways to connect, share and collaborate on mutually beneficial opportunities. The SAFA platform features, opioid awareness, school safety and threat assessment trainings through interactive, multi-media videos and webinars. To ensure successful comprehension of the training, SAFA is developing online assessments using “Accelerated Learning”, a state-of-the-art training methodology that measures the participant’s comprehension and knowledge of the content. As defined and integrated into this platform, accelerated learning is the reduction of learner time required to meet learning objectives in a training event. Through engaging learners, the accelerated learning process improves usability and increases human performance.
Objectives, Implementation and Development
Seeking school districts, selecting training partners, populating the digital platform with resources, and demonstrating accelerated learning. To provide school districts with the tools necessary to enhance their safety and drug awareness plans, SAFA has developed a Digital Directory of Training Programs and Tools. First, SAFA will analyze and choose resources by contacting vendors and conducting interviews about their trainings, products and/or services. These products and services will be further reviewed through contacting and collecting the feedback from school districts that have already utilized them. SAFA will continue to identify selected training programs to add to the digital community, while also implementing accelerated learning.
For example, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health and Human Services Administration provides an online PDF version of their training, Addressing Risk of Violent Behavior of Youth. This training will be converted into an online delivery platform and integrated with an assessment tool for each participant to measure their gained knowledge and comprehension of the key elements. SAFA has begun collecting the information of school districts nationwide in order to reach out to them about joining the virtual community. SAFA is conducting a comprehensive national search to identify all school violence reduction training programs in the U.S. Along with training resources, SAFA has created an ongoing Master Research Index of other resources, research, technologies and funding opportunities. SAFA will then consolidate all resources, training, research and funding opportunities into the Digital Directory of Training.