Episode 2: Can School Nurses Prevent the Next School Shooting?

Host: David Riedman

Guest: Robin Cogan, National Association of School Nurses and Relentless School Nurse Blog

On the show we talked about:

* Robin’s career in occupational health and deciding to work inside Camden City, NJ schools for the last two decades.

* Role of a school nurse as the Chief Wellness Officer and being the frontline emergency medical responder for hundreds—or thousands—of students each day.

* Investing in a Student Wellness Team with school nurses, psychologists, and social workers can identify at-risk students and provide a wide array of assistance to prevent situations for escalating into violence.

* Nobody wants to call a child a “threat” like a terrorist or criminal. Instead of “threat assessment”, school nurses and trained healthcare professionals can use positive language to promote wellness.

* School nurses are trained to treat problems caused by trauma rather than a law enforcement focus of taking criminal action against children.

* Healing centered engagements—suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and wellness checks—can stop almost any student who is experiencing severe trauma from escalating to the point of committing a planned attack.

* Educating parents about the extreme risks of having unsecured guns at home or inside vehicles, and the life-saving potential of locking up unloaded firearms.

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Wisconsin Public Radio after the Mount Horeb Middle school shooting.

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