NaBITA Press Release - National Behavioral Intervention Team Association

NaBITA Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JANUARY 15TH, 2009

Today marked the launch of the National Behavioral Intervention Team Association. This association will be known as NaBITA. The website for the association is www.nabita.org.

NaBITA’s mission: The National Behavioral Intervention Team Association (NaBITA) is committed to providing education, development and support to professionals in schools and in the workplace who endeavor every day to make their campuses and workplaces safer through caring prevention and intervention.

NaBITA will bring a wealth of new opportunities and resources to higher education. We are very proud to bring to higher education a new membership opportunity. While many could argue that higher education is full of associations, as our field grows and evolves, new areas of specialized knowledge develop. At a point of critical mass, an association is needed as a hub around which a new field can coalesce. That point is now. That hub is NaBITA.

No one could have predicted that more than 1,600 behavioral intervention teams would form on college campuses in the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. But, the task force and investigative reports were all of one mind in calling for such teams, and colleges and universities have heeded the call.

NaBITA is an independent entity, though the team that created NaBITA is well‐known in higher education. Brett A. Sokolow, JD, W. Scott Lewis, JD and Saundra K. Schuster, JD are all partners in the law and consulting firm NCHERM, the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management. Brett Sokolow will serve as NaBITA’s first president. W. Scott Lewis is the Executive Director and Saunie Schuster is the Vice President for K‐12 Initiatives. They are joined by Carolyn Reinach Wolf, Esq., a mental health law expert who will serve as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives. Kate Halligan is the Associate Executive Director, and the staff also includes Kim Lewis as Membership Coordinator, Rebecca White as Events Coordinator and Rhea Parian as Partner Program Coordinator.

Brett Sokolow was asked why he helped to found NaBITA. He replied, “Two years ago, NCHERM was a small, successful consulting firm. The events of Virginia Tech catapulted our CUBIT model to national prominence, and we are no longer a small firm. While you could argue that our model fulfilled a pressing need, you can also rightly say that higher education has made us what we are today. We truly take to heart the notion that to whom much is given, much is expected. NaBITA is our way of giving back. We’re creating an intentional, supportive community. We’ll nurture it until it is self‐sustaining, and then let it grow of its own inertia as it fulfills its mission of fostering enduring models that result in safer campuses, workplaces and schools.” Executive Director Lewis added, “One of my priorities with NaBITA is to ensure a high level of actual deliverables to the membership in the form of support, education, research, models, and resources. It’s a value‐added model at a level that is uncommon for higher education associations.”

NaBITA was the brainchild of NCHERM Executive Director Cori Sokolow, who said, “I initially expected that NaBITA would be a resource for colleges and universities. I did not anticipate that it would have a broader reach, but it makes sense. Essentially, there are three NaBITAs ‐‐ one for colleges and universities, one for K‐12 schools, and one for corporations/organizations. All of these entities have behavioral intervention models, so they all need an association to call their own.”

A complementary Whitepaper to commemorate the launch of NaBITA is available. View your copy of Threat Assessment in the Campus Setting (PDF).

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