News & Insights

Phil Santore Featured in Security Magazine Article with Focus on Mental Health

Phil Santore Featured in Security Magazine Article with Focus on Mental Health

Security
News & Publications
security

Introba (formerly Ross & Baruzzini) Security Vice President - Managing Principal, Phil Santore, spoke with Security Magazine on how safety and security stakeholders can empower students and staff to help mitigate mental health issues, violence, or unwanted behaviors by starting with facility design: 

“To build or create an environment indicative of a negative place paints a picture that students see. Everything you put in front of them says something to them, even nonverbally,” Santore says. “When you stop thinking like a security professional and start thinking like an educator, parent, or child, you can do some wonderful things.” 

There is a movement to go from the reactive to passive and proactive when it comes to helping students address mental health issues and manage behavioral concerns, as well as mitigate school violence, bullying, or unwanted behaviors. One of the ways schools can approach this issue is through a holistic facility design that implicitly encourages students and staff to speak out about potential problems before they happen, according to Santore. 

You may have heard about Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design or CPTED. But even school stakeholders that don’t have training in CPTED can take a critical look at their environments from the eye of a student, a staff member, or a bad actor. 

“Those schools that are willing to think outside the box are beginning to design schools differently,” he explains. School counselors or mental health professionals have traditionally been housed in the main office and removed from the general population of the school, creating a physical and mental separation between them and the students.   

Read the full article from Security Magazine, and learn more about our Security solutions here

Related Projects

Related News