On Dec. 9-10, 2024, Safe and Sound Schools, in partnership with the Berkeley County Commission including the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department, hosted the Eastern West Virginia Safety Summit for Schools and Communities. This inaugural event, the first in the State of West Virginia, is dedicated to the shared responsibility of fostering safety in schools and communities through active conversation, strategies, and solutions.
The conference featured nationally recognized speakers who shared best practices, innovative programs, and actionable insights focused on enhancing school and community safety throughout the nation. Over the two-day conference, local leaders and national experts engaged in keynote presentations, panel discussions, and community conversations on critical topics such as behavioral threat assessments, school and student safety and security, and community resilience and recovery. All the event sessions were guided by the Safe and Sound Schools Comprehensive School Safety Framework.
Safe and Sound Schools is a national nonprofit dedicated to safety advocacy, helping protect schools and students every day. It was founded by Michele Gay and Alissa Parker, mothers of Josephine Grace Gay and Emilie Parker, who were tragically killed in the Sandy Hook School shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. Their organization provides research-based tools and resources to support crisis prevention, response, and recovery in schools and communities nationwide. Their framework for comprehensive safety planning and development focuses on areas like operations and emergency management; safety and security; leadership, law, and policy; and more.
Safe and Sound Schools and the Berkeley County Commission are leading efforts to strengthen public safety with a coordinated, county-wide approach. This initiative focuses on establishing multidisciplinary threat assessment and management task forces, supported by specialized trainings and technologies to identify, respond to, and prevent incidents of targeted violence and terrorism. The program has actively engaged partners across all six managerial districts in Berkeley County, ensuring collaborative and effective implementation.
To continue advancing this important mission, Safe and Sound Schools collaborated with the Berkeley County Commission to host the safety summit. This partnership was funded by the Berkeley County Commission’s FY22 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant award, administered by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Berkeley County Commission played a vital role in organizing the conference, securing grant funding to support its objectives and collaborating with the Berkeley County Office of Emergency Management and the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department to ensure its success.
The 2024 Eastern West Virginia Safety Summit for Schools and Communities gathered more than 160 participants, spanning 13 states: California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland. This allowed participants to network and collaborate with partners both locally and nationwide. Law enforcement professionals made up almost half of the attendees, while other attendees represented K-12 schools, academia, local and state governments, higher education, social services, solution providers, nonprofits, and other key sectors. This vast participation underscored the safety summit’s commitment to their mission: advocating for safety in schools and communities through a multidisciplinary approach to terrorism and targeted violence prevention.