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Abstract
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The headline, "Children Are No Safer One Year After School Shooting" in my local Sunday paper (Willey, Citation2024) prompted the thoughts I am sharing with you today. Last year, I had described the school shooting referenced by Willey in a previous editorial (Thomas, Citation2023). On a lovely spring day, a troubled individual in Nashville, Tennessee, had fired 152 rounds, murdering three 9-year-old children along with educators and a custodian at their school (Hassan & Cochrane, Citation2023). Despite community outrage, no substantive changes were made in gun laws of Tennessee, where more children die from gun deaths than any other cause (Willey, Citation2024).
The surviving children attend school in a church that offered its spaces after the shooting. My thoughts today are about these survivors and the psychological sequelae of the murders. We know from research that experiencing violence in childhood places children at risk for poor educational outcomes (Fry et al. Citation2018) and mental health issues, such as substance misuse, depression, and suicidal behavior, later in life (Fazel et al. Citation2024). These children and their grieving families need not only our strong support but also our activism to combat future violence against children.
Approximately 1 billion children across the globe are victims of violence every year, many of them experiencing more than one type of violence (CDC.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/vacs/fastfact.html). Glancing through the pages of this journal during my years as editor, the outcomes of experiencing and witnessing violence during childhood are often portrayed, along with suggested therapeutic interventions. Back in 1996, Jones and Selder wrote about psychoeducational groups to promote effective coping in school-age children living in violent communities. Brandau and Rebello (Citation2021) wrote about surviving cyberbullying. An article on services needed by children who witness violence was published in 2010 (Willis et al., Citation2010). Violence prevention has received less attention.
Violence prevention strategies have been promulgated by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which published INSPIRE: Seven Strategies for Ending Violence Against Children in 2016. The model interventions discussed in this report were based on evidence of effectiveness derived from high quality quasi-experimental or qualitative studies (WHO, Citation2016). The research demonstrated the effectiveness of measures such as enacting stricter gun licensing laws and banning corporal punishment of children. School psychoeducational programs decreased peer violence. The report is published in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, and can be downloaded free from WHO. A handbook is offered to guide implementation of the seven strategies. ...
Language: en |