SCSS Impacts

Our National Institute of Justice funded randomized trial of the SCSS Model (Dymnicki, Kingston, Arredondo Mattson et al., 2021), with 46 Colorado middle schools and 62,590 students, found following:

Addressing readiness barriers

Intentionally addressing readiness barriers can lead to improvements in schools’ readiness to use a comprehensive approach to address school safety. For example:

Improvements were found in schools’ leadership to support the SCSS Model
School teams reported establishing clear standards at their schools for implementing the SCSS Model and the climate supporting SCSS implementation improved over time
Increases were found in the school teams’ belief that the SCSS Model is important for improving children’s mental/behavioral health at the school and in team’s level of priority to implement the model

Using implementation data

Implementation data can be used to monitor implementation quality and promote data-driven quality improvement.

Schoolwide interventions

Comprehensive, schoolwide interventions produce change one piece at a time, rather than in all areas at once.

Within a 2-year period it’s feasible to support a school in developing a functioning school-based team, conducting resource mapping, and using results from that (and other data sources) to select, train staff for, and begin implementing an evidence-based program

Monthly evaluations

Additionally, the school teams we partnered with during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic year completed monthly evaluations, which revealed that:

97% of school team members agreed their partnership with SCSS contributed to a clearer understanding of their school’s current supports and resource needs
94% of school team members agreed their partnership with SCSS built their school’s capacity around prevention efforts
95% of school team members agreed their partnership with SCSS improved their school’s climate and culture