Required Partners

Preventing violence and promoting healthy student development cannot be accomplished by schools working alone; partnership is key to SS/HS’s success. The SS/HS Initiative draws upon the best practices of education, justice, law enforcement, and mental health and identifies these four local agencies as its required partners:

• Education: a local education agency (LEA) or consortium of LEAs.
• Juvenile Justice: the agency or entity that is officially recognized by state or local government to address juvenile justice issues in the communities served by the grant. Examples include juvenile justice task forces; juvenile justice centers, juvenile or family courts; juvenile probation agencies; juvenile corrections agencies.
• Law Enforcement: the agency (or agencies) that has law enforcement authority for the LEA(s). Examples include municipal, county, and state police; tribal police and councils; sheriff’s departments.
• Mental Health: the public mental health authority or entity legally constituted (directly or through contract with the mental health authority) to provide administrative control or oversight of mental health services’ delivery within the community.

These agencies create a core partnership that submits a single SS/HS application and provides leadership and management to local program efforts. The addition of other key stakeholder groups creates a communitywide collaborative approach that can be very effective in achieving and sustaining the SS/HS vision of preventing violence and promoting healthy student development.