As Michigan schools prepare for the Oct. 1 mandate under House Bill 5549 to establish behavioral threat assessment and management, or BTAM teams, districts face the challenge of long-term oversight for high-risk students. Prevent 2 Protect, or P2P, a project housed in Michigan State University’s Department of Psychiatry, serves as a vital statewide partner by providing free BTAM training, expert consultations and daily intensive mentorship to ensure student support and prevent violence.
Directed by Alyse Folino Ley, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor in MSU’s colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and Human Medicine, P2P builds on her extensive background in trauma and post-traumatic stress. Drawing from her involvement in national reviews following mass tragedies, Ley co-founded P2P to offer a first-in-the-nation model that combines early intervention, nonpunitive support and strict confidentiality to transform students’ lives and keep communities safe. Here, she explains how P2P is helping schools establish BTAM teams and management practices to improve school safety throughout Michigan.
What new school safety requirements are taking effect for Michigan schools?
Under House Bill 5549, all K-12 school settings — including public, private and charter schools that receive state funding — are required to establish BTAM teams by Oct. 1. These multidisciplinary teams must include educators, law enforcement, mental health and special education personnel. The teams use a structured process to identify, evaluate and manage potential safety concerns or threats of violence within the school environment.
How is Prevent 2 Protect helping schools across Michigan prepare their teams?
In partnership with the Michigan State Police Office of School Safety, we deliver official BTAM basic training for K-12 educators, administrators, mental health professionals and law enforcement. We have trained hundreds of professionals in behavioral threat assessment and thousands of community members and stakeholders in the identification of early warning signs and the complex management of high-risk adolescents. This ensures school teams have the skills to evaluate threats effectively and put proper safety measures in place.
Why is this new requirement so challenging for schools to handle alone?
Identifying and assessing a threat is only the first step. The real challenge for schools is the long-term management — maintaining continuous monitoring, providing ongoing mentorship and connecting high-risk students to community services. School personnel often lack the time, resources or specialized expertise to handle this alone, especially after school hours, on weekends or during summer breaks.
How does Prevent 2 Protect help schools across Michigan address this ongoing management challenge?
Prevent 2 Protect serves as a safety net and expert partner for schools across the state. We offer a continuous, free consultation model funded by the Michigan Department of Education. School staff, law enforcement, mental health providers and parents can consult with our multidisciplinary panel — which includes experts in psychiatry, law enforcement, education and case management — to get best practice guidance and practical answers on how to manage high-risk cases long-term.
Prevent 2 Protect does additional work in five regions across Michigan. What services are provided in those areas and how does it help?
In addition to our statewide consultation services, P2P operates dedicated Intensive Support Teams across five designated regions. When a student in one of these areas presents a significant threat, schools can refer them to our team. We conduct a comprehensive assessment, analyze all historical documentation and build an Individualized Care Plan. A dedicated regional case manager and mentor then work directly with the student and their family, seeing them as many as five or six times per week depending on the student’s needs.
Our primary goal is to change the trajectory of high-risk students’ lives before a situation escalates into violence. By offering individualized, intensive monitoring and nonpunitive support, we help address root causes like unaddressed trauma or mental health needs, assist families with housing and insurance, navigate community systems and connect students to positive, healthy activities. When a child feels truly supported and included in their community, they are far less likely to cause it harm. Complete anonymity and confidentiality are essential to this process — keeping their identity private gives students a genuine second chance to rebuild their lives safely within their school and community without the burden of public stigma.
What’s next for Prevent 2 Protect?
As schools across Michigan implement their threat assessment teams, we are focused on expanding our training programs and continuous consultation services to support districts statewide. We are the first program in the nation to manage high-risk students through this daily, multidisciplinary approach. Our work — evaluated in partnership with researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — is building a proven blueprint that other states can model to keep schools and communities safe across the country.
