Potential strategies
What the evidence says works, applied to Central Oregon. These are proposals for our founding board and community to weigh, not commitments.
Safe Schools Central Oregon formed this fall with one promise: bring the whole region together around three outcomes any parent can picture. Young people in crisis get help early. Firearms stay out of the wrong hands. Neighbors carry each other through loss.
This page lays out the strategies we propose for the first year and the second, across seven areas: how we set ourselves up, how we connect and heal, how we help people know the signs, how we lock it up, how we build a care network, how we advocate, and what technology we would and would not build. Each strategy says what it is, why it fits Central Oregon, what the research shows, who we would work with, what we would measure, and the hardest objections we heard when we asked skeptical people to pick it apart.
A few rules shaped every page. We join what already works here before building anything new. We have asked gun owners, hunters and sheriffs to lead the storage work, and clinicians support from behind. We promise a process we can keep, never an outcome we cannot control. We hold no names of young people. We take no position on Measure 114 or on bans, and we would never count a court order as a success. We would publish what moved and what did not, every October, including the results we wish were better.
Most of what is here is small, local and already half built by the counties, the school districts and the suicide prevention alliance. Our job is to add money, volunteers, trusted messengers and a roster of clinicians willing to see a young person fast.
The first 90 days
What we would do first, in order.
- This week: attend the Oregon Alliance to Prevent Suicide fall meeting at the Riverhouse in Bend on October 22 and ask to join its schools work and its work on keeping guns and medications out of reach during a crisis; ask the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) and the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance for partner status within two weeks; send the volunteers-not-vigils letter to Deschutes County Health Services, St. Charles and Bend-La Pine Schools.
- By day 30: file articles for the public benefit corporation, register with the Department of Justice before any solicitation, recruit a treasurer and a volunteer attorney, interview the four fiscal sponsor candidates including the Oregon Wildlife Foundation, and adopt the one-page technology policy.
- By day 30: hold the first listening session in Madras or Prineville with the Oregon Hunters Association chapter presidents, the Redmond Rod and Gun Club board, the Central Oregon Shooting Sports Association, VFW Post 1643, the three sheriffs and county commissioners; invite the Lock It Up council, with a gun-owner chair and written veto, and report seats as filled or pending.
- By day 60: publish the identity statement, the full year-one Advocate agenda and what the group would not do, and the gift acceptance policy; adopt the one-page budget with three funded lines; make the first fundraising ask a founding gift covering one year of the intake coordinator.
- By day 60: join S.A.F.E., the alliance's free lockbox program, as a co-funder, with its inventory and the renewal date of its Roundhouse Foundation grant (a Sisters-based family foundation) in writing; offer to help Redmond, Prineville, Madras and Sisters police and the Crook and Jefferson sheriffs enroll in Project ChildSafe; propose the first lock table in Madras, hosted by a hunters association chapter or the sheriff if either agrees, with the anonymous handoff card, the safe-handling rule and the printed firewall.
- By day 60: publish the bilingual Get Help Now page and the not-a-crisis-service disclaimer with every crisis door named; publish the phone-verified lock pickup list and wallet card with two named keepers.
- By day 75: get the fiscal sponsor's written insurance answer, finish the two-page roster enrollment agreement and the counsel-reviewed one-page clinical floor, enroll the first verified clinicians, and schedule the first cohort of Counseling on Access to Lethal Means, a free two-hour course (CALM).
- By day 90: propose the escalation agreement to Deschutes County Behavioral Health and BestCare Treatment Services (the nonprofit provider serving Jefferson and Crook counties) that defines escalation, volumes and hours; confirm the after-hours youth crisis pathway for each county; begin counselor-initiated referrals on parent consent through the founder rotation with a published weekly cap and a month-six end date.
- By day 90: file the three data requests once (tip aggregates from Oregon State Police, protective order counts from the Oregon Judicial Department and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), emergency visit counts from Healthy Schools); ask Crook County about the 2026 Student Health Survey through its health department; publish the two-page baseline with the safe messaging guide applied.
- By day 90: ask the ESD to host the SafeOregon point-of-contact refresher before winter break, offer to fund the ID card reprint as an unrestricted gift, ask superintendents to commission the per-school inventory through the ESD, and ask the ESD to commission the regional release template through its counsel.
- By day 90: survey the roster for trauma treatment training and share the count privately with the ESD and the affected district; brief local newsrooms on safe messaging guidance; adopt Respite Ready, Ending the Silence and the first sessions of training that teaches adults to notice warning signs and ask directly as the trainings the group promotes.
- By January 2027: offer each named seat on the five to seven person board and report it as filled or pending, extend the Warm Springs invitation in person, and file for 501(c)(3) status on the calendar that the projected budget allows.
Foundations
How we organize so the work lasts.
ProposedFirst 90 days for incorporation, sponsor and policies; board seated by January 2027; IRS filing by month nine
Build the legal container before the first dollar
Form an Oregon public benefit corporation, register with the Department of Justice before any fundraising, sign a written fiscal sponsorship agreement that says who signs agreements, who carries insurance and whether lobbying is permitted, seat a five to seven person board whose named seats make the nonpartisan promise visible, and file for federal tax-exempt status (501(c)(3)) by month nine.
ProposedFirst 90 days; first listening session within 30 days; identity statement published by day 60
Put gun owners in charge of Lock It Up
Invite hunters, a range operator, a gun shop owner, a veteran and a sheriff's representative onto a Lock It Up council with a written veto over storage materials and partner names, and publish a one-paragraph identity statement by day 60: pro responsible ownership, no position on Measure 114 or bans, with a firewall between the storage work and anything at the Legislature in Salem.
ProposedFirst 90 days (by January 20, 2027)
Join what exists and claim only two jobs
In the first 90 days, ask to become a partner of the Safe Schools Alliance and a member of the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance, lend volunteers to the gatherings and trainings already running, help the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) complete a per-school inventory of what each school already has, and publicly claim only the two jobs no one else is organized to do: a clinician roster with fast first appointments and gun-owner-led storage outreach outside Bend.
ProposedBaseline by day 90; first quarterly report by month six; annual report each October
Measure first, grade honestly, report every October
Publish a two-page baseline from data that already exist by day 90, file three data requests once, commission a one-page map of what we do and what we expect it to change, grade the evidence behind every program the group funds, never claim attacks averted, and publish a short you-said-we-did report each quarter and a sourced annual report each October, with extreme risk protection order figures reported only as context.
ProposedBudget adopted by day 60; founding gift ask made by day 90; gates reviewed quarterly
One budget, one order of operations
Set a year-one budget of roughly $100,000 to $150,000 with three funded lines (one intake coordinator share, lockboxes, a small evaluation share), a named board owner for each pillar, go and no-go gates reviewed each quarter, and a written rule that care capacity is funded and the referral agreement is signed before any awareness push.
Connect and Heal
Gatherings, grief support and belonging.
ProposedFirst 90 days for the training survey; months 4 to 24 for training cohorts and school-based delivery
Train a bench for children and staff who need more than the first weeks
Survey and train the clinician roster in the school-delivered trauma treatments with the best evidence behind them (Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, or CBITS; Bounce Back; and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or TF-CBT), deliver them through the school-based health center sponsors and county school-based services that can bill, offer the affected district a staff recovery track only if invited, share privately a nonpartisan position on drills and memorials, and brief local newsrooms on safe messaging before anniversaries.
ProposedMonths 4 to 12
Recruit mentors where hunters and veterans gather
Use Oregon Hunters Association chapters, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and American Legion posts, ranges, hunter education instructors and congregations as a recruiting pool for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Oregon (BBBS) and the Deschutes County Sheriff's COPY program, which mentors children with a parent in jail, with site-based matches (mentor and child meeting at a school or community site) in Redmond, La Pine, Prineville and Madras, so gun owners would have a role in the coalition that is about kids, not guns.
Know the Signs
Noticing early and speaking up.
ProposedFirst 90 days for the point-of-contact refresher and ID cards; first full training cycle in fall 2027; every fall thereafter
Make SafeOregon routine in every school, every fall
No new tip app. Offer to fund the SafeOregon number and QR code on every secondary student ID card in the three counties, work toward one in-person SafeOregon session in every middle and high school each fall with a parent session the same week, ask superintendents for directives on after-action reporting (the short follow-up reports schools file on what happened with each tip), request tri-county totals from Oregon State Police, and ask each district to commit that every urgent tip gets a care offer from the school.
ProposedFirst 90 days for the guide draft; trainings through months 4 to 12 and every year after
Train the adults a worried young person will actually tell
Use the founders' reach to hundreds of teachers, counselors and practitioners to work toward adults trained to notice warning signs and ask directly (gatekeeper training) in every school building, through trainings the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance and partners already run, and give parents and teachers a one-page first-hour guide in English and Spanish: what to do when a young person tells you something, who to call tonight, what is not a concern, and what happens after a report.
Lock It Up
Secure storage, with gun owners.
ProposedFirst 90 days to ask to join S.A.F.E. and help agencies enroll in Project ChildSafe; first table in Madras within 60 days; events proposed in every town by month 12
A free lockbox in every town, handed over by someone you trust
Extend S.A.F.E., the free lockbox program run by the Central Oregon Suicide Prevention Alliance, and the device program run by the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) into a tri-county network in which owners choose their own device, with at least one verified pickup point in all seven towns, tables where gun owners already gather, staffed by hunters, veterans and, where sheriffs agree, deputies, a medication lockbox beside the cable lock, and a two-question anonymous card with an optional three-month follow-up so the pillar reports behavior, not box counts.
ProposedFirst 90 days for the pickup list and wallet card; months 4 to 12 for the storage list after legal review
One verified answer: where to get a lock tonight, and who will hold my guns
Replace the single advocacy web page with one plain page and a wallet card, in English and Spanish, listing every free lock pickup point we can verify by phone and every willing temporary storage option in the three counties, organized by legal path, with no advocacy branding and two named gun-owner keepers re-verifying by phone every six months.
ProposedMonths 1 to 6; attached to every device by the first lock tables
Change the combination, move the key, and know who can hold your guns
A gun-owner-written, plain-language sheet and a facts-only explainer of Oregon's storage law that go beyond buy a safe: change the combination, keep keys off the ring, ask what your kid knows, and during a crisis hand guns to a relative or trusted holder under Oregon's existing family and emergency transfer rules.
Care Network
Fast help for young people who are struggling.
ProposedDisclaimer and crisis doors published in the first 90 days; founder rotation first, funded coordinator by month six; first public timing report by month 12
One person owns every referral, and we promise a process we can keep
Fund one paid, licensed, part-time intake coordinator housed inside a partner agency that already holds health records; publish a one-page promise (acknowledged within one business day, first contact within two, a first appointment targeted within ten business days, with a defined escalation when a target is missed); say plainly that the network is not a crisis service; set a written scope and referral doors; and publish days from referral to first contact by town every quarter.
ProposedFirst 90 days for the enrollment agreement and the one-page floor with counsel review; months 4 to 6 for every roster member to complete Counseling on Access to Lethal Means, a free two-hour course (CALM)
Who joins the roster, and what every first visit includes
Every roster member would verify an Oregon license, show individual liability coverage, pass a background check, stay uncompensated beyond documented expenses and accept a cap on active cases; and every first visit would follow the same floor: a brief suicide screen, a safety plan, a voluntary storage conversation with a lockbox in hand that covers medications too, parental involvement keyed to age, and a note that records the judgment made, not an inventory of the family's guns.
ProposedRegional template and one pilot district in months 2 to 6; remaining districts asked to sign by year end
Plug into the threat assessment system the region already runs
A written agreement with the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts) and each district, drafted once through the ESD's counsel, that names the roster as a referral destination in the student's management plan (the list of supports the team assigns), not a seat on the regional threat assessment team (Level 2); spells out the two-way parent release and the separate youth authorization; returns four status words to the school and nothing to the law enforcement record; states that the network would never file or supply information for an extreme risk protection order (ERPO) petition; makes any re-entry offer unconditional; and asks the ESD to publish counts of referrals by county, disability status and race, with no names.
ProposedMonths 4 to 12; the tribal partnership on the tribe's timeline
Build the roster against a map, and do not run it on pro bono alone
Named roster slots for Madras, Prineville, La Pine, Sisters and Redmond with telehealth and an in-person first visit at a school-based health center or county clinic; partnership rather than importation with BestCare (the community behavioral health provider in Madras and Prineville) and Warm Springs; a Spanish-speaking navigator share; billing insurance where a clinician accepts the family's plan, volunteer slots reserved for uninsured youth, a small rapid-access fund contracted through a clinic, and a quarterly dashboard of days to first appointment by town and insurance type.
Advocate
A nonpartisan, outcome-focused state agenda.
ProposedAgenda and neutrality statement published by December 19, 2026 (day 60); 2027 session; reviewed each October
Publish the whole year-one agenda before the first lock table
Before anyone testifies, put in writing a short, outcome-focused state agenda a hunter can sign (restore funding for the state school safety and prevention system, a liability shield so sheriffs, ranges, dealers and relatives can hold firearms during a crisis, and support for the tip line and youth care access), written neutrality on Measure 114, bans, acquisition, carry and hardware, no candidate work, lobbying within the federal limits for charities (501(c)(3)), and advocacy paid only from named unrestricted gifts.
ProposedCounty baseline request in month one; guide, navigators and referral path in months 4 to 12
Explain the existing protective order law from both sides of the form
No petition targets, ever. A bilingual, plain-language guide to Oregon's extreme risk protection order (ERPO) law that links the court's own instructions and covers how to file, what rights the respondent (the person named in the order) has, how the hearing works and how firearms come back; an options-in-order sheet (talk, a relative hold, sheriff storage, a court order last) told in the voice of sheriffs and veterans; navigators housed with the county district attorney victim assistance programs; a care offer to every household on either side; and a rule that petition counts are never a success measure.
Technology
Tools that help people connect and get help, built carefully.
Build. In the first 90 days, a plain bilingual website with a Get Help Now page that points to SafeOregon, 988, YouthLine and the county Stabilization Center, a newsletter sign-up, and nothing that collects information about a young person. In months 4 to 12, one verified page and wallet card listing every free lock pickup point and temporary storage option in the three counties, organized by legal path and re-verified by phone every six months; an after-hours youth crisis map that confirms for each county what a family does tonight with a minor; and the thin tools the Care Network needs, a weekly open-or-full capacity board and a three-date referral log hosted inside a partner agency that already holds health records. In year two, clinician-run caring contacts (short follow-up notes) for Care Network clients, with written consent and a vendor that can be bound by the federal health privacy law (HIPAA) if texts rather than letters are used.
Use. SafeOregon for every report, because it is the statewide system with a live person 24 hours a day and legal identity protections (SafeOregon; ORS 339.329, Statewide tip line to report information con…). Care Solace, which three local districts already use for referrals where someone makes the call with the family to a community provider (Back to School: Mental health resources available for stu…; Schools launch mental health partnership (The Nugget, Sis…; Jefferson County School District 509J (Native Language Pr…). 211info for the directory (211info). Lock to Live, linked unmodified, as a free bilingual decision aid (Lock to Live). The county’s own crisis lines and the Stabilization Center, open 24/7 to all ages at no cost (Deschutes County Behavioral Health: Crisis Services).
Avoid. A branded app. Median 30-day retention across 93 mental health apps was 3.3 percent (Objective User Engagement With Mental Health Apps: System…) and only 5.4 percent of SafeOregon tips last quarter arrived through its app while 68.6 percent came by web (SafeOregon Quarterly Report, July 1 to September 30, 2026…). A second local tip channel, which would split tips away from the system that has law enforcement routing and legal protections. A youth community platform, since online peer spaces for teens bring moderation burdens and the risk that harmful behavior spreads between young people, alongside their benefits (Online peer support and non-suicidal self-injury among ad…). Any monitoring or detection product; the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) acted against an AI weapons scanner used in schools over deceptive claims (FTC Takes Action Against Evolv Technologies for Deceiving…). Any database of young people’s names held by the nonprofit. Oregon’s Consumer Privacy Act has applied to 501(c)(3) organizations since July 1, 2025 (Enrolled Senate Bill 619 (2023) and ORS 646A.572) and the federal children’s online privacy rule (COPPA) covers any online service directed to children under 13 (FTC: Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, A Six-Ste…).
Phased, with a receiver named first. Nothing would be built in Phase 1 unless an institution has agreed in writing to take it over by the end of year two: the High Desert Education Service District (the regional agency that supports all six school districts), a county, 211info or Oregon State Police. Every tool would have three years of hosting in the budget and a sunset date. Two named stewards, one technical and one clinical, would review every form before it goes live. If a donor offers to fund an app, the answer is this page.
ProposedFirst 90 days; policy adopted by day 30; reviewed quarterly through year two
Phase 0: write down what we would not build
Adopt a one-page technology policy in the first month: use existing state and county channels first; no app, no local tip channel, no youth platform, no monitoring product; build only small, static, bilingual web pages; hold no youth-identifying data; budget three years of hosting; and name a receiving institution and a sunset date for anything built. Launch a plain bilingual site with a Get Help Now page.
ProposedMonths 4 to 12; the board and log launch the day the coordinator starts
Phase 1: run the Care Network on tools that already exist
Get roster clinicians listed where counselors already look (Care Solace, the care-finding service Bend-La Pine and Sisters have used, and 211info, the statewide help line and directory), stand up an internal weekly open-or-full capacity board and a three-date referral log inside the host agency (the partner organization that would hold the records), use an off-the-shelf scheduling tool to place volunteers into existing programs, and publish a verified after-hours youth crisis map by county.
ProposedYear two
Phase 2: caring contacts under clinicians, and offer durable pieces to institutions
After six months of intake data, pilot clinician-sent caring contacts (brief, scheduled notes from a clinician after a crisis; letters first, texts only through a vendor eligible under the federal health privacy law, HIPAA) for Care Network clients with written consent, inside a partner that runs the Zero Suicide framework (a structured approach to follow-up and transitions in care), and offer each durable tool to an institution under a written agreement by the end of year two.
Help us choose
These are proposals. Our founding board will weigh them with the community. If you have experience with any of them, or you see something we missed, we want to hear from you.
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