Communication Tips: #1 - #2 - #3 - #4

Communication Tips: #1 - #2 - #3 - #4

SPIRIT: Defusing High School Tension Before It Starts

The SPIRIT program is a technique designed to anticipate and prevent high school violence. The acronym stands for Student Problems--Identifying and Resolving Issues Together. Steven Thom, of the community resources division at DOJ, developed the program and helped as the Sacramento Police Department facilitated it in several Sacramento high schools.

This program brought together student leaders--of both student councils and gangs--to discuss their school's problems and to seek solutions using the Nominal Group Technique method. The students and officers met for two days at an off-campus sit. Typically the programs involved about 100 students for each high school.

Believing that students who were with others of a similar ethnic background would speak more freely of the problems they encounter, on the first day of these programs student groups were ethnically formed. Their task was to identify safety problems in their school. Each group's list was shared with the whole group.Facilitators selected problems identified by multiple groups to serve as the stimuli for the second day.

On day two, the students were rearranged into ethnically integrated groups to generate solutions. As the second day ended, student representatives were assigned to work with their principal to try to implement some of the solutions generated.

Each group began with ice breaking activities to help the students feel comfortable with one another. This was especially important on Day 2.

The meetings served as a way to empower students and to awaken them to civic responsibility. What changes occurred from the meetings, however, depended heavily on school administration and on the students themselves. To encourage such change, neighborhood police officers and the school administration monitored the progress.

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