Threat assessment is an approach to violence prevention originally developed by the U.S. Secret Service. In 2002, a joint report of the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education recommended that schools train threat assessment teams in order to respond to student threats of violence (Fein, Vossekuil, Pollack, Borum, Modzeleski, Reddy, 2002). A threat assessment is conducted when a person (or persons) threatens to commit a violent act, or engages in behavior that appears to threaten an act of violence. This kind of threatened violence is termed targeted violence. Threat assessment is a process of evaluating the threat, and the circumstances surrounding the threat, in order to uncover any facts or evidence that indicate the threat is likely to be carried out.

A short paper describing the Virginia model for student threat assessment.

A recent study published in School Psychology Review shows how schools can use student threat assessment.