A New Resource to Support Our Especially Special Students
- Michele Gay
- Sep 10
- 2 min read
I am proud to announce that Safe and Sound Schools, in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), has launched BTAM & ASD: An e-Guide for Assessing Students on the Autism Spectrum, a new resource equipping educators and practitioners to administer behavioral threat assessment management (BTAM) for special needs students with confidence and fidelity.
Building on our longstanding work in this area, at Safe and Sound, we’ve long encouraged school communities to customize their BTAM processes to meet the needs of students with autism and other special needs. Formalizing that work into a dedicated guide was the next right step—one that creates a strong foundation for a specialized approach to BTAM for this unique population of learners. While there are very few guiding resources currently available, our hope is that this guide provides an accessible, practical toolkit filled with best practices, expert insights, and actionable takeaways for school teams.
Just as important, this project is deeply personal. It is deeply personal to both our Senior Director of Violence Prevention Research and Programs, Dr. Frank Straub, and me as parents of neurodiverse children. We’ve each learned so much from our kids and from our own professional experiences—mine as an educator and Frank’s as a criminologist and licensed clinician. As School BTAM has expanded in use and success across the field, we’ve increasingly heard from practitioners who need specific guidance to better serve students with autism. I am personally honored that Frank brought this project to Safe and Sound Schools, and I’m thrilled by the feedback we’ve already received from our pilot groups.
What excites us most about this project is the opportunity to serve students who are especially close to our hearts. In many ways, Dr. Straub’s vision for this work honors my daughter Josephine’s legacy and helps us better support our “especially special” students, like Joey. It is our hope that this guide will not only honor students like Joey but also provide practical support for the multidisciplinary teams—school resource officers, public safety professionals, mental health practitioners, administrators, educators, and parents—working together to ensure student and school safety.
This resource would not have been possible without Dr. Straub’s leadership and personal commitment, as well as the subject matter experts who generously shared their wisdom and experience to shape a tool that is both relevant and impactful for the field. We are deeply grateful to Amy Matthews, Ph.D., Stacie Rullison, M.S., M.Ed., BCBA, Stephanie Leite, Psy.D., Alexander Westphal, M.D., Ph.D., and Clare Allely, Ph.D. for their contributions to the guide as well as our partners at NCPI for bringing our vision for an e-guide course to life, delivering this critically important content to our colleagues and practitioners in the field.
Lastly, we are proud and honored to partner with BJA to make this guide widely available. More than just a resource, we hope it serves as a call to action—a reminder of the responsibility we share to serve every student, and to do so with compassion, expertise, and care.