Introductory
Adolescent Development and Risk Formulation
How normative adolescent development shapes—and is mistaken for—risk, and how to formulate accordingly.
Intermediate4.0 CE hours
Self-pacedCertificate on completion
A structured, evidence-informed approach to assessing and managing students who raise concern for targeted violence — from the first report through case management and follow-up. Built around the distinction between making a threat and posing a threat, and the questions that actually separate the two.
Learning objectives
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Describe the empirical basis for behavioral threat assessment and how it differs from profiling and from general violence risk assessment
- Distinguish between a student who has made a threat and a student who poses a threat, using observable behavioral indicators
- Apply a structured inquiry sequence to gather corroborating information from multiple sources
- Identify warning behaviors associated with movement toward targeted violence
- Formulate a case and select a proportionate management plan, including when no further action is warranted
- Document assessment reasoning in a manner that is defensible and useful to the next reader
Course outline
Pre-test 10 min
Twenty items establishing your baseline. Ungraded and untimed. Your results are shown alongside your post-test at the end so you can see what changed.
Module 1 — Foundations and the evidence base 45 min
Where behavioral threat assessment came from, what the Safe School Initiative and subsequent research actually found, and why profiling approaches failed. Includes the base-rate problem and what it means for your practice.
Module 2 — Making versus posing a threat 50 min
The central distinction of the field, worked through six anonymized case vignettes with commentary. Knowledge check follows.
Module 3 — Warning behaviors and the pathway 55 min
Pathway, fixation, identification, novel aggression, energy burst, leakage, last resort. What each looks like in a school-aged population and how they present differently from adult cases.
Module 4 — Structured inquiry and corroboration 45 min
Who to interview, in what order, and what to ask. Handling the student interview, the caregiver conversation, and peer report. Includes downloadable question sequences.
Module 5 — Formulation, management and documentation 50 min
Turning information into a formulation, matching the management plan to the formulation, monitoring and closing cases. Documentation templates included.
Post-test 25 min
Forty items drawn from a larger pool. 75% required to pass. Up to three attempts, with rationales released after you pass.
Evaluation & certificate 5 min
A short evaluation is required before your certificate is released. Your certificate downloads immediately and stays in your account permanently.
Your instructor
JD
Dr. J. Doe, PhD, ABPP
Board-certified in forensic psychology
Twenty-two years consulting to school districts and law enforcement on behavioral threat assessment. Has served on multidisciplinary teams in three states and trains regional teams annually.
Disclosure: receives an honorarium for this course. No commercial support. No relevant financial relationships to disclose.
Target audience & level
Intermediate. Intended for licensed psychologists, school psychologists, counselors and social workers who have some prior exposure to risk assessment concepts. No prerequisite course is required, but participants entirely new to the field may prefer to begin with Adolescent Development and Risk Formulation.
Related training
Intermediate
Building a School-Based Response Team
Standing up a multidisciplinary team: membership, thresholds, documentation and the first 72 hours.
Advanced
Clinical Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
Structured professional judgment, base rates, and defensible documentation when the data are incomplete.
Enroll in Advanced Threat Assessment
Start with the pre-test today. Most participants complete the course across two or three sittings.