A blueprint for school violence threat assessment implementation and evaluation

The Behavioral Health Improvement Institute serves as the external evaluator for a local NH school district’s school violence prevention efforts, supported by a federal grant to develop school threat assessment teams and implement the Comprehensive School Violence Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) developed out of the University of Virginia. CSTAG is a nationally recognized, evidence-based, and multidisciplinary framework for assessing student threats of violence in K-12 schools. CSTAG supports early identification and assessment of violence risk and uses a preventative approach to threat response that emphasizes behavioral health support in student intervention.

We adapted CSTAG’s fidelity of implementation guidance to develop a detailed tool to measure our partner school district’s progress in implementing school threat assessment teams and related CSTAG processes. Fidelity has to do with intervention integrity – the degree to which a practice is implemented in a way that is faithful to the guiding model. The resulting Adapted CSTAG Fidelity Tool now serves as a gold standard blueprint for the district, helping school teams understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of their CSTAG implementation. The tool is designed to be used by schools that have experienced at least one student-related threat of violence (transient or substantive) and serves as a prompt for ongoing quality improvement in CSTAG implementation.

National CSTAG purveyors encourage school districts to adapt CSTAG materials to best fit their local context and needs, while maintaining fidelity to core CSTAG principles. Check out BHII’s Adapted CSTAG Fidelity Tool to explore what the threat assessment model looks like when implemented to gold standard guidelines and how our fidelity tool can be used to support high-quality CSTAG implementation.

CSTAG Adapted Fidelity Tool 2026-03-06.pdf

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The Adapted CSTAG Fidelity Tool was adapted by the Behavioral Health Improvement Institute from the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) manual: Cornell, D.G. (2024). Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines: Intervention and Support to Prevent Violence (2nd ed.). University of Virginia. Development of the tool was supported by the Manchester NH Police Department and Manchester School District, NH as part of their STOP School Violence grant efforts supported by funding from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance. Please do not alter the tool without their permission.

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Questions about school threat assessment evaluation or BHII’s other work? Contact us or connect with Megan Phillips on LinkedIn.

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Megan Phillips is a Principal Investigator at the Behavioral Health Improvement Institute (BHII) at Keene State College.