While K-12 schools are safe places and have become even safer in recent years (Musu-Gillette et al., 2017), incidents of targeted violence continue to attract widespread attention and concern across communities.
In this context, districts and states have increasingly turned to the use of behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) to assess concerning or threatening behaviors and provide appropriate interventions and supports to reduce the risk of harm.
Across the United States, 38 states require using BTAM by law or encourage it by policy (National Association of State Boards of Education, n.d.).
Current data indicate that 85% of public schools in the United States report having a behavioral threat assessment team in place (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.) whether or not their state requires it.
The U.S. Secret Service pioneered BTAM in the early 1990s to protect prominent public officials and persons.
Since then, it has been adapted to prevent acts of targeted violence that impact other areas of the community, such as schools
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