Creating Safe and Caring School Communities: Comer School Development Program Schools

This article asserts that schoolwide interventions have the greatest potential for buffering students from violence outside of schools and for preventing violence within schools. It examines critical aspects of one such intervention, the Comer School Development Program (SDP), and explores the ways in which this program directly and indirectly impacts both the level of violence in the school and children's, parents', teachers', and school administrators' responses to it. By embracing children within a web of prosocial relationships and activities, the SDP is shown as creating a "safe haven" that supports their healthy development, fosters optimal learning, and discourages interpersonal violence.