How Dalhemsskolan creates a safer school environment

Customer Case: Dalhemsskolan in Helsingborg

Background: The school is located in a troubled area with risk of incidents.
Requirement: To be able to quickly and safely alert colleagues or take other action if something happens at the school.
Solution: AddSecure’s School Safety solution.
Result: A safer work environment for both students and teachers, which in turn has an effect on the business.

Through active work, the school creates a safer school environment

The school should be a safe place for both students and staff, and parents should feel safe leaving their children there. This is included in both the Education Act and the Work Environment Act. But studies show that the number of reported cases of threats, violence and robbery in the school environment has doubled in just a few years.

Dalhemsskolan in Helsingborg, just like other schools, has experienced unrest. Since 2016, the school has been actively working on an action plan with various efforts to create a better and safer school. The school safety solution from AddSecure is part of this work. And the safety work has produced results.

– It is quiet today and we have a fantastic school, but we have also worked actively to give both students and staff a safe work environment. The major challenge in our work has been to create a safe school in an insecure area, where you can work in peace and where knowledge can be cool. But also to turn the rumor about being a rowdy school, into the truth about the school we actually are today, says Anette Swenninger, principal of Dalhemsskolan.

The large school area requires fast and secure communication

The school covers a large area and the cafeteria, gym and music room are located in other buildings. Thus, the staff  need to be able to communicate with each other in a fast and secure way if an incident occurs.

– Being a teacher often means working alone in the classroom with individual responsibility for many students. By being able to alert a colleague in a challenging situation, we increase the safety for staff and students. And because the school staff consistently act at every incident, we also show that certain behaviors will not be accepted, says Anette Swenninger.

The school safety solution provides teachers with tools to intervene in everyday events such as trouble in the school yard or in the cafeteria, but also supports staff in more serious incidents such as assault on staff or if there is a need for general evacuation or containment.

How the school safety solution works

The solution ensures that help is quickly in place and thus prevents or limits the impact of an incident until help arrives. It consists of a communications platform and several different technical aids such as a mobile app, portable alarms and pagers.

The staff raise the alarm by a simple touch of a button in the mobile app or other equipment in which different scenarios have been entered. All alarms notify the school’s action group which quickly comes to the rescue. The staff either solves the task themselves or calls for further reinforcement through an alarm center and their collaborative partners, such as the municipality’s security guards, rescue service or police.

Safety should be a given

– Many incidents that occur in schools would never be accepted in a workplace. Being able to be safe in their job and in their school environment is something that should be a given, says Marcus Gustring, spokesperson for school safety at AddSecure.

There is a clear link between perceived safety, the work environment and goal fulfillment. AddSecure wants to help schools create a good work environment and ensure that school safety becomes part of strategic work environment initiatives.

– Not feeling safe creates pressure on an already exposed profession and on the students. We want to reverse this and create a better work and study environment. Our experience from our many school projects is that when staff have good interaction, easy-to-manage communication channels and a good understanding of how to act in every situation, it results in a positive effect for the business. This is often in terms of lower staff turnover, less injuries and also improved results for the students, says Marcus Gustring.

The safety and quality work continues

The safety work at Dalhemsskolan continues. Through AddSecure, the school has continuous access to preventative training that increases the staff’s ability to handle threats and violence and that meets the requirements of the Swedish Work Environment Authority.

– The staff’s ability to handle specific incidents and to act together has increased thanks to the school safety solution. We will be able to follow up events over time to make decisions about targeted actions. It will also be possible to see how effective the measures have been, which is part of our quality work, says Anette Swenninger.

The responsibility lies with the municipality

How municipalities and individual schools set up safety and work environment initiatives varies. Sven Mårtensson, security manager at the School and Leisure Administration in Helsingborg Municipality, believes that Dalhemsskolan works in an exemplary way.

– The principal, together with the staff, has decided to create a healthy and safe school. By taking a holistic approach to the work environment for both staff and students, they create their own safety. The school safety solution, in other words, technology and communications, is just one part; collaboration, interpersonal relationships and shared values are other very important areas the staff work with to make Dalhemsskolan a safe school, says Sven Mårtensson.

– As society has changed, schools have become more vulnerable, and this is a way to increase the safety and security of staff and students. I think we need that. Municipalities need to think about it – invest in this, that’s my advice, concludes Anette Swenninger.