PSST News
Kamloops Prepares to Launch PSSTWorld October 1, 2009
• Kamloops RCMP are lending their hand to a new online program in which students can anonymously report problems in their school.
The new website, PSST (Promoting Safe Schools Together) World, allows students to post tips on anything they feel is a concern to them or fellow students.
Those tips will then be filtered by a school-district staffer and passed on to Kamloops RCMP if needed.
Const. Cheryl Bush said she hopes the website will give students a venue to report incidents in a safe manner.
“We feel it’s important that kids have a voice in the schools and in a way that they feel safe,” Bush said.
The Kamloops-Thompson school district will be the second district to use the website in the province.
The Surrey school district was the first, noting it receives nine to 12 tips of information per month.
Bush suggested the number of tips is a good indication the service is not being flooded with false reports.
The Kamloops portion of the website, at psstworld.com, will be up and running in the next couple of weeks.
Surrey North Delta Leader - Student tipsters shut down crack shack
The weather-beaten one-storey house with the faded blue siding and security cameras was located near two Surrey schools – a few blocks from Sullivan Heights Secondary and right beside Cambridge Elementary.
Some students were suspicious.
In early March, they told school authorities, who alerted the school liaison officer, who called in the drug squad.
During their very first day of surveillance, drug squad officers could see the windows and door of the ramshackle house at 14953 60 Ave. had been reinforced.
They also saw two teenagers entering the house. The 14-year-old and 16-year-old left a few minutes after they entered.
Police stopped them and found one was carrying a small bag of marijuana.
That was enough for a search warrant.
When Mounties raided the house, they caught a 19-year-old male and 18-year-old female with a supply of marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy. The two suspects are facing a variety of drug-related charges.
There were also signs the occupants were manufacturing crack cocaine on the premises.
The house has since been declared uninhabitable by City of Surrey bylaw enforcement officers.
It’s now boarded up with a municipal warning notice taped to the front.
At a Wednesday media briefing at the Sullivan Heights school, RCMP Sgt. Roger Morrow said police, students, school authorities and municipal enforcement staff all worked together to shut down the crack shack.
“We’re coming at the drug problem from all sorts of angles,” Morrow said.
School district spokesman Doug Strachan said a number of students reported the suspicious activity at the house to the school principal and vice-principal.
“The school is quite proud of these students,” Strachan said, adding the arrests should send a message to people who think they can set up a drug house in the vicinity of a school.
One tip was made online to the Protecting Surrey Schools Together website at http://www.psst-bc.ca using the “report-it” form that allows students to make anonymous tips about bullying, threats of violence and vandalism. Students do not have to provide their names.
“We’re seeing increasing use of the website” said Theresa Campbell, Surrey school district safe schools manager, “increased access just to visit as well increased anonymous reports on a variety of activities.”
The site was created by the Surrey School District in partnership with the Surrey RCMP.
Williams Lake Tribune - SD 27 adopts new safety initiatives
By Gaeil Farrar - Williams Lake Tribune
School District 27 trustees are embarking on two new initiatives to help make schools, and by extension, communities in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, safer and more rewarding places for children and youth.
At their regular board meeting Thursday the trustees agreed to participate in the new Communities That Care project, and to spend $1,500 to set up a special website for students called PSSTWorld as a pilot project.
Superintendent Diane Wright said the PSSTWorld site was first established by the Surrey school district a year and a half ago and is working well to connect students and help to address problem issues such as bullying, drug abuse, and gangs.
The web site was established in Surrey schools by Theresa Campbell in cooperation with the RCMP. Campbell is a recognized national and international expert on school safety.
The PSSTWorld site provides reliable information on important issues that affect students and a place for students to share their experiences and connect with each other in a safe environment.
Students can submit articles to the site on topics such as sports, fashion, creativity, etc.
The site is monitored and any articles posted that involve harassment, cyberbullying and taunting are filtered and/or reported to law enforcement authorities.
One unique feature of PSSTWorld is called Report It, a secure and confidential area for students to share information about anything that concerns them at school.
Report It is a safe and anonymous way for students to report bullying, threats of violence and vandalism. Students do not provide their names unless they wish to be contacted.
The trustees agreed to take part in the Communities That Care project after listening to a presentation by the City’s social development manager Anne Burrill and probation officer Brad McCrae.
Communities That Care is a community-driven pilot project funded by the Ministry of Children and Families, that is being initiated in Williams Lake and Anahim Lake to help vulnerable youth have a support system and network of resources necessary for a healthy lifestyle. The Planning Council of Williams Lake and area is spearheading the project in coordination with the City of Williams Lake.
One of the initial phases of the Communities That Care program is to conduct a survey among Grade 6 to Grade 12 students to measure the incidence and prevalence of substance use, delinquency and related problem behaviors and the risk and protective factors that predict those problems in a community.
In endorsing the school district’s participation in Communities That Care trustee Bruce Mack said the school district is uniquely positioned to participate in the program by assisting in delivering the survey to students. He and other trustees also agreed that participating in Communities That Care could assist the school district in planning programs and dealing with issues such as gangs, drugs and crime.
Burrill explained that she grew up in Anahim Lake and Williams Lake and has been working in the social work field for 15 years.
She said Communities That Care is not a silver bullet cure, but a system for bringing communities together to address problems.
She says research shows that success in dealing with problems such as crime, gang violence, and drug abuse is highest when all sectors of a community work together to address the problems. Communities can’t simply expect social services, schools or the RCMP to be successful in addressing the problems on their own.
McCrae added: “Research shows that programs fall flat if they are not embraced by the community.”
The Communities that Care Prevention Strategies Guide lists 56 tested and effective prevention programs and policies that are shown to increase protective factors, reduce risk factors and reduce adolescent problem behaviours in well controlled studies.
“It’s a model, but it’s not a straight jacket,” Burrill said, noting that each community needs to decide on what existing programs may be worth enhancing and which new programs may be worth initiating.
As a probation officer, McCrae said he has arranged for many young people to participate in very good treatment and life-skills programs, but if supports are not there in the community for them when they return it is easy for young people to fall back into their old lifestyle.
Burrill pointed out that a risk factor could be something as simple as a child seeing their parents drink a beer at a soccer game and getting the idea that it is OK to do so even though the action may be illegal.
Burrill said Squamish has been using the Communities That Care program for 10 years and saw a decrease in risk factors in the very first year it was initiated.
PSSTWorld Launched!
PSSTWorld adds a major resource to its partner school districts in their efforts to eliminate bullying, abuse, crime, vandalism and threat of school attack. Constant media coverage calls attention to school violence, violence that has now moved to the internet (cyberbullying), violence that has led not uncommonly to death (bullycide) and school attack (Columbine, Taber, etc.), violence that is mostly preventable. PSSTWorld offers a website that students can visit and call their own; a place for students to discuss a variety of areas of interest, affect their own culture through creative projects and contribute safety tips anonymously (via the internet) directly to school district safety professionals. The result is a more connected culture and, in turn, improved school safety.
PSSTWorld.com is a 3-fold communication website. Firstly, it offers students a prominent 'Report It!' button to report dangerous school activities (anonymously, if desired) to school distict safety professionals at any time; secondly, it offers students a safe forum to create, opinion share and view postings from other students; and thirdly, PSSTWorld offers school district safety professionals a password-secured area to share and discuss school safety experiences and successful protocols.
No more isolation. Students communicate with students. Students communicate with school district safety professionals. School district safety professionals communicate with one another. Everyone is connected. Everyone has a mode of action available. School safety is popularized.
In the upcoming months of fall, PSSTWorld will be introducing its new school district partners in the 'Featured' section. PSSTWorld is currently available to all school districts in Canada and the USA.
For more information on how your school district can become part of the PSSTWorld community, email us at info@psstworld.com or call 1-866-926-5541..
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