Columbia’s Office of Violence Prevention wants more intervention in schools

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Following Columbia's gun violence analysis, the Office of Violence Prevention aims to improve school violence intervention.

The City of Columbia's Office of Violence Prevention presented a violence-prevention analysis last week identifying three areas of focus, including violence interruption in schools.

D'Markkus Thomas-Brown, Office of Violence Prevention administrator, said increasing school intervention will require concerted effort and collaboration.

"It's collaboration with CPS," Thomas-Brown said. "And working at the extent of the level that they want to explore, working with students to either are very high risk or at risk to violence and working with the organizations that houses these students because they don't stay at CPS 24 hours a day."

Services could range from mediation to simply showing up for the student, Thomas-Brown said.

Counseling is another tool, he said.

"If there's been a normalization of that trauma, being able to step back and talk about grief and loss and then having resources for that family to fight through, whether it be trauma counseling or ... family trauma counseling, whatever that may be, or it may be tutoring or a workforce development for the parent and the child," Thomas-Brown said.

Thomas-Brown said that the Office of Violence Protection has been working with Columbia Public Schools looking for next steps in violence intervention at school.