Free School Safety Survey for Parents and Kids Available to School Districts

    PHOENIX, AZ, September 28, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- To help increase awareness of America's Safe Schools Week (October 16-22), school districts in the U.S. can now have access to a free resource designed to facilitate structured conversation between parents and their children about the things that make kids feel unsafe at school.

Talking to Kids About School Safety features 13 questions that give parents a complete overview of the factors that make their children feel more or less safe at school. The questions allow kids to select an answer choice on a four-point scale and then provide examples and personal observations to their parents.

"Schools obviously care about kids, but they sometimes forget to involve kids and their families in important discussions about school safety," said Craig Beytien, Senior Managing Partner at VisdomK12, the publisher of Talking to Kids About School Safety. "Kids have a unique and personal perspective on a range of hazards and potential threats that exist within their own school environment. One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to let kids accept certain dangers as normal. That's why this kind of structured dialogue is so important."

The guide was written by Dr. Ron Stephens and his associates at the National School Safety Center and represents more than 30 years of on-the-scene experience with a variety of threats and hazards in schools across America.

"This was designed as a family activity that lets parents really hear what their kids have to say about how safe they feel at school," Stephens said. "The responses to the 13 questions produce an overall score that will help parents quantify and qualify how safe their child feels. The individual scores can also be shared with school leadership to facilitate a broader dialogue among parents, teachers, and administrators at each school."

VisdomK12 and a corporate partner, Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc. are making it possible for school districts to have free use of Talking to Kids About School Safety. Interested schools are invited to learn more and download a sample of the guide at https://solutions.visdomk12.com/ssw

"Consistent with Sedgwick's 'caring counts' philosophy, we are deeply concerned about the safety and security of children in the school environment, where parents may not have a clear view into their children's safety," said Chris Mandel, Sedgwick' Senior Vice President of Strategic Solutions and Director of the Sedgwick Institute. "Promoting communication between parents and their children is a critical link to greater transparency and understanding of the safety and security of our children while they're in the care and custody of teachers and school administrators. Sedgwick is proud to support these efforts to improve security at America's schools."

More than 150 school districts have already made plans to use Talking to Kids About School Safety as part of their observance of America's Safe Schools Week.

About VisdomK12
Visdomk12, a division of The Grandview Group LLC, offers a variety of crowdsourcing technology solutions that make it easy for schools to involve stakeholders in collaborative evaluations of conditions, content, concepts, proposals and products. The company has worked with school districts across the country to provide the tools that facilitate open, evidence-based decisions that incorporate the collective wisdom of district stakeholders. For more, see www.visdomk12.com.

About Sedgwick
Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc., is a leading global provider of technology-enabled risk and benefits solutions. At Sedgwick, caring counts; the company takes care of people and organizations by delivering cost-effective claims, productivity, managed care, risk consulting and other services through the dedication and expertise of more than 14,000 colleagues in some 275 offices located in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland. Sedgwick facilitates financial and personal health and helps customers and consumers navigate complexity by designing and implementing customized programs based on proven practices and advanced technology that exceed expectations. Sedgwick's majority shareholder is KKR; Stone Point Capital LLC and other management investors are minority shareholders. For more, see www.sedgwick.com.

# # #