Research on the Effects of an Anonymous Tip Line and Multidisciplinary Response Teams in Schools across the State of Nevada

Statement of the Problem: The Nevada Department of Education (NDE) proposes to develop and implement a “no wrong door” approach for youth seeking help, in crisis, or wanting to aid a peer by reporting harmful behaviors (e.g., threats of violence,substance use, and suicidal thoughts). Help2Te11 is a comprehensive and coordinated effort to provide Nevada’s 460,000 students with a safe and anonymous method for informing school staff, mental health providers, and law enforcement officials of disconcerting behaviors that may result in preventable tragedies. Even more so, the program is designed to mobilize local-level multidisciplinary teams to provide a rapid response to meet the needs of students in distress, prevent intended acts of violence, and refer students to mental health. Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), in conjunction with the University of Nevada, Reno, and NDE proposes to conduct an effectiveness research study of Nevada’s Help2Te11 Program. services. This effectiveness study has three overarching goals:
Goal 1: To conduct a comprehensive outcome evaluation that examines the effectiveness of the Help2Te11 program for increasing school safety throughout the State of Nevada.
Goal 2: To conduct a comprehensive implementation evaluation to document how the Help2Te11 program is disseminated throughout the State of Nevada and to help determine how implementation and contextual factors influence program outcomes.
Goal 3: To conduct a cost/cost savings analysis to determine if the costs associated with implementing Help2Te11 are outweighed by the cost savings garnered. We hypothesize that the Help2Te11 program will effectively intervene in cases of reported problem behaviors,increase students’ perceptions that the school is a safe and caring environment, and eventually lead to school- and district-level reduction in reports of problem behaviors (e.g., bullying, self-harm, and violence). Through a mixed-method research design, we will answer a series of outcome, implementation, and cost research questions about the Help2Te11 program. Methods includes the collection of monthly reports of problem behaviors, annual and biennial student surveys, intensive case studies, interviews, focus groups, and cost-benefit assessments. We will use time series models to analyze changes in monthly reports, hierarchical regression techniques to analyze changes in survey responses, and cost-benefit assessment to determine the ratio of program costs to cost savings. Although all schools in all school districts will participate, half the schools will be randomly assigned to be trained in Year 1 and half in Year 2, forming an experimental design with an intervention group and a delayed-intervention
comparison group. ca/ncf