Gun Shop Project - Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence

Our Work

The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) is conducting a process and outcome evaluation of Gun Shop Project (GSP) efforts in Colorado and across the U.S. While GSPs are being implemented in 21 states throughout the country, studies evaluating GSP implementation and impact are limited. Through our evaluation efforts, CSPV will build upon these previous studies to better understand how GSPs facilitate change within Colorado and the impact GSPs have on suicide outcomes more broadly across communities that support such efforts.

Gun Shop Projects

Gun Shop Projects (GSPs) build local partnership infrastructure between public, mental and community health agencies, and firearm businesses. The approach uses trusted messengers in the firearm community to educate firearm business owners, managers, and employees on the increased risk of death by suicide among firearm owners due to their access to firearms when in crisis. Through relationship building, education, and the provision of resources and materials, GSPs support businesses in understanding, adopting, and disseminating suicide prevention and safe storage promotion messaging, recognizing customers at-risk for suicide, and facilitating voluntary, temporary safe storage for at-risk members of their community.

GSPs were first started in 2009 in New Hampshire and have since expanded across the United States. More information about New Hampshire’s efforts and GSP’s national expansion can be found here. The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment (CDPHE) has been supporting GSP in local Colorado communities since 2015. More information about state-wide efforts can be found here.

Our Evaluation

To understand how GSPs facilitate change in communities and impact suicide outcomes, we are conducting a robust evaluation that includes both state and national components.

Local implementation evaluation: To better understand how GSPs are implemented across Colorado communities and to identify the critical components of GSP implementation, we are working with existing GSP sites to collect information on their experiences with GSP and their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to suicide prevention and safe firearm storage.
Local outcome evaluation: To evaluate the impact of GSP on the owners, managers, employees, and customers at firearm businesses that participate in their local GSP, we will work with new GSP sites to conduct a quasi-experimental evaluation that looks at changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to suicide prevention and safe firearm storage attributed to GSP participation.
National evaluation: To understand the impact GSPs may have on suicide outcomes, we will examine the effects of GSP implementation and duration on the number of suicides involving firearms in counties that have supported GSP efforts in comparison to counties that have not supported GSP efforts.

Our Partners

Our project is rooted in partnership, and we are honored to work with the Office of Suicide Prevention within the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment’s (CDPHE) Violence and Injury Prevention – Mental Health Promotion Branch whose support of local GSP efforts in Colorado make our evaluation possible.

Additionally, our team partners closely with researchers on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, community agencies, individuals, and organizations, including the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition, all of which are invaluable to our efforts.

Our Impact

Our evaluation efforts are underway, and we look forward to sharing our findings soon.

Our History

The SCSS Model was developed with funding from the Colorado Trust by multiple stakeholders in 1999 following the tragedy at Columbine High School. The SCSS Model’s first iteration was an actionable process for schools that integrated the Columbine Commission’s recommendations, violence prevention efforts, evidence-based programs, and prevention science to improve school safety and climate.

From 2008-2012, CSPV received funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the development of auto-generated reports for the SCSS School Climate Surveys. To date, the SCSS School Climate Surveys are a mainstay of the SCSS Model and have been provided to nearly 200 schools nationwide.

Most recently in 2016, CSPV received funding from the National Institute of Justice’s Comprehensive School Safety Initiative to implement and evaluate the SCSS Model with 46 middle schools in Colorado. This funding allowed for the development of additional innovations within the SCSS Model, which allowed schools to (1) measure and strengthen their readiness to adopt evidence-based practices and strategies, (2) build high-functioning multi-disciplinary teams to champion the work, and (3) receive tailored tools, processes, and technical assistance to support high-quality implementation.

The SCSS team feels fortunate for the opportunity to collaborate with schools and the relationships that we have developed.

“SCSS has been a way to really find momentum and move towards sustaining momentum for change”

– School Partner

“The most gratifying part about working with SCSS was the consultants that came in and were able to listen through some of the challenges that we had at our school without any judgment and while also trying to figure out solutions to those problems”

– School Partner

“SCSS understands that each school is going to have different needs and different personalities and different children to serve.”

– School Partner

“SCSS gave us great data from staff and students, and really helped us understand our school culture as a whole and identify the needs that we have at our school, and for our population specifically.”

– School Partner

“SCSS is a collaborative team effort that provided a really good experience and enabled everybody to participate to the fullest.”

– School Partner

Resources

To ensure lessons are learned beyond this project, we create resources and publish in scientific journals to provide researchers and practitioners access to information that can help improve school safety:

SCSS Model Introductory One-Pager (PDF )
SCSS Model Graphic (PDF )
Top 10 Recommendations for School Safety (PDF )
Colorado Attorney General’s School Safety Guide (PDF )
Kingston, Beverly & Wilensky, Rona (2018). Building Adult Social and Emotional Capacity: A Key Ingredient for Unleashing the Power of Prevention. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 9(4):783-797.
Kingston, Beverly, Arredondo Mattson, Sabrina, Dymnicki, Allison, Spier, Elizabeth, Shipman, Kimberly, Fitzgerald, Monica, Goodrum, Sarah, Woodward, William, Witt, Jody, Hill, Karl, Elliott, Delbert. Building Schools’ Readiness to Implement a Comprehensive Approach to School Safety (2018) . Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 21(4):433-449.
Goodrum, S., Evans, M.K., Thompson, A.J., & Woodward, W. (2019). Learning from a Failure of Threat Assessment: Eleven Questions and Not Enough Answers. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 1-19. DOI: 10.1002/bsl.2399
Goodrum, S., Thompson, A.J., Ward, K. & Woodward, W. (2018). A case study on threat assessment: Learning critical lessons to prevent school violence. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 5(3), 121-136.
Goodrum, S., Woodward, W. & Thompson, A.J. (2017). Sharing Information to Promote a Culture of Safety. NASSP Bulletin 101(3): 215-240.
Goodrum, S., & Woodward, W. (2016). Report on the Arapahoe High School shooting: lessons learned on information sharing, threat assessment, and systems integrity. Denver: Denver Foundation. An executive summary of the report and supporting documents are available.