The Public Policy Center is working to prevent acts of targeted violence and decrease the suicide rate in Nebraska with various initiatives on targeted violence prevention, suicide prevention, threat assessment, and school safety. Center staff facilitate the development of threat assessment capabilities to enhance law enforcement, educational, and behavioral health professionals’ abilities to address various aspects of targeted violence (e.g., stalking, school violence, extremist violence).
PPC researchers work in consultation with Nebraska agencies and University partners (often with federal funding support) to develop and assess suicide detection and prevention efforts.
Recent projects include: Nebraska Youth Suicide Prevention GLS Project, UNL Campus Suicide Prevention, Violence Risk Assessment, and Threat Assessment.
Nebraska Youth Suicide Prevention
As part of a five-year GLS Suicide Prevention Grant, PPC researchers are working with Region V Systems and the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) to reduce rates of youth suicide by promoting prevention and postvention policies. There is a special emphasis on southeast Nebraska’s 16 county area addressing documented public health data recording a high suicide rate. Implementing postvention policies based on standard guidelines and routine evidence-based suicide screening in schools is the target for the NDE working through the Educational Service Units across the state. PPC staff work with the suicide prevention coalition of Lancaster County and the State Suicide Prevention Coalition sponsoring activities to promote messages regarding suicide prevention.
More information and resources can be found on the Nebraska Youth Suicide Prevention website.
Targeted Violence Prevention and Research
NUPPC is engaged in several projects exploring targeted violence in different contexts. For example, NUPPC is partnering with several entities to implement Stop School Violence Act Grants (Safe2Help Threat Assessment Teams website), exploring the role of public health in preventing targeted violence (PTV website), and engaging in other types of targeted violence research (UNL-Targeted Violence Research website).
Learn more about NUPPC’s efforts in behavioral threat assessment and targeted violence on the (Threat Assessment and Targeted Violence website