Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Community-led, School-based Secure Firearm Storage Campaign in Michigan

The State of Michigan's new safe storage law requires that all firearms in homes with children be securely stored. Yet, ensuring that firearm owning adults adhere to the law will require effective communication of the new policy, access to safety devices and internalization of positive norms related to secure storage.  School-based secure firearm storage campaigns can be cost-effective to promote firearm safety through normalizing secure firearm storage and enabling coordinated communications between school personnel, parents and youth while serving as community hubs for disseminating safety resources. Further, parent and youth engagement in the development of schools’ messages may be a critical component to ensuring culturally relevant and acceptable messaging through trusted messengers. Yet, there is a lack of rigorous research assessing the implementation and effectiveness of school-based secure storage campaigns. The goal of this study is to use a mixed-method approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the Safe Storage Campaign (SSC) in schools across Michigan in promoting safe storage practices in adults and preventing adolescent firearm violence. SSC is a community-led, school-based secure firearm storage campaign to improve school safety through: 1) a comprehensive education program to teachers, parents, and students regarding secure firearm storage; 2) engaging youth and parents for message development and to serve as trusted messengers; and 3) promoting the distribution of gun locks through schools.   

The objectives of this study include: 1) conduct a 2-group randomized control experimental design with 30 high schools (n= 15 control, n= 15 intervention) in Michigan school districts in urban, suburban and rural areas; 2) conduct pre/post surveys and data extraction from school administrative records to assess attitudes, norms, and behaviors of secure firearm storage among adult family members and firearm-related incidents among students; 3) assess implementation components and outcomes (reach, adoption, acceptability) of SSC through implementation tracking, focus groups, and interviews; 4) conduct cost/benefit analysis. Using both qualitative and quantitative analyses, including mixed-effects modeling, the team will assess overall program effectiveness and implementation factors as it relates to both adult and student behavioral outcomes. This study is one of the first rigorous evaluations of school-based secure firearm storage campaigns and firearm-related outcomes. Upon completion of the study, the team will submit the data to the NACJD and leverage existing Michigan School Safety Initiative and National Center for School Safety networks to disseminate findings to inform best practices and generalizability of such campaigns in school settings state- and nation-wide.