A powerful Kidpower video about school safety, in response to the Uvalde mass shooting
Kidpower Founder Irene van der Zande masterfully addresses this incredibly difficult topic.
Violence in our schools is one of the most devastating problems that our society urgently needs to fix. It can be overwhelming to even talk about it, especially in the immediate wake of the Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, which broke all our hearts. Irene van der Zande approached this formidable challenge with incredible compassion, actionable ideas, and skills. Her talk lifted me up, and gave me ideas for productive steps I can take to advocate for increased safety and well-being in my own community. Thank you, Irene, for sharing your wisdom with us—it really made a difference. – Dr. Amy Tiemann, best-selling author and mother
As a child safety and abuse-prevention expert, I am prepared to speak on a whole wide range of difficult topics. But I will be honest and share that I don’t think I would be ready to teach an entire session about school safety and preventing mass shootings.
I was a high school teacher in San Francisco when the Columbine High School massacre changed the way we think about schools in America. Back then a mass school shooting was still in the realm of the “unthinkable.” Now, after Parkland, Uvalde, and too many more, this tragedy has become all too routine. I hate that fact with every fiber of my being. I was an expectant mother in April 1999, and now my child is a grown adult. And I feel like we have have not only not made progress, we have lost a lot of ground in the time span of an entire generation growing up. Gun violence is now the #1 cause of death among American kids age one year and older. We cannot accept this as “part of living in a free society.” It is the exact opposite of that: gun violence creates fear and trauma that terrorizes our whole citizenry.
My biggest fear about speaking on gun violence would be saying something that might make people feel better, but would not actually help them at all.
The good news is that my colleague and mentor, Kidpower Founder and Executive Director Irene van der Zande, was able to masterfully discuss this incredibly difficult topic. She led an hour-long discussion that focuses on skills, and things we can each do now to advocate for school safety in our communities. Here is the link to the video of Irene’s talk, one of many valuable community resources produced and shared by Kidpower International, the global non-profit leader in personal safety education.
These skills are valuable for creating physically safe and emotionally-safe school environments for our kids, and to advocate—within our schools, our communities, and to our elected leaders.
Irene and I are better together, that is for sure! When we co-wrote the book Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels our goal was to create “the missing manual to child safety,” which I always pictured as the guidebook I wished I had available to me as a new teacher and parent. Between the two of us, we were never at a loss for words. I highly recommend her teaching to each of you.