About Us

Because more than 95% of all work performed by Safe Havens is for K12 school projects, we have a laser focus on the unique needs and therefore relevant solutions for the K12 setting.  We have earned a reputation for understanding how K12 schools operate, while being able to draw relevant lessons from other settings when they are applicable and adaptable to the unique needs of K12 schools. We work with public, faith-based, independent, boarding, military, and international K12 schools.  These schools range from six of the nation’s ten largest public school systems, to faith-based schools with 26 students, and to almost every other conceivable type of K12 institution.

We have assisted school officials with school safety, security, climate, culture, and emergency preparedness assessments for more than 8,300 K12 schools in the United States, Canada, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Trinidad-Tobago, and Vietnam.  We have helped conduct state-wide school safety, security, climate, culture, and emergency preparedness assessments for six states, dozens of the nation’s most highly regarded independent schools, three national charter school companies, and all of the Jewish K12 schools in the greater Boston Metropolitan Area.  We do not work with shopping malls, factories, ports, hotels, or other sectors unrelated to serving youth – we do school safety.

In addition to keynoting more than 500 state, national, and international professional conferences in all 50 states and more than a dozen nations, our analysts have published more than 30 books in the field of school safety.

Safe Havens analysts have provided official post-incident assistance for more than 300 school crisis events at schools, school athletic events, and on school buses in the U.S., Canada, Kenya, and Mexico.  These events include 22 active assailant events/targeted school shootings and a devastating terrorist attack on students, staff, and parents on a school field trip.  Safe Havens analysts have served as expert witnesses for complex multi-million and even multi-billion-dollar school safety civil actions.

Our analysts co-authored the content for the United States Department of Homeland Security IS 360: Preparing for Mass Casualty Incidents: A Guide for Schools, Higher Education, and Houses of Worship training program focused on active shooter incident prevention and preparedness for the United States Department of Homeland Security as part of the 2013 White House School Safety Initiative.  Our analysts have authored and co-authored seminal works in the field including: Innocent Targets – When Terrorism Comes to School, the peer reviewed 450- page Jane’s Safe Schools Planning Guide for All Hazards, Staying Alive – How to Act Fast and Survive Deadly Encounters, which was released by Barron’s in May of 2014.  A team of Safe Havens analysts have recently completed the manuscrupt for a 600-page university textbook Extreme Violence:  Understanding and Protecting People from Active Assailants, Hate Crimes and Terrorist Attacks for Cognella, which has been accepted for publication and is due for release in October 2020.

Safe Havens analysts are regularly interviewed by major media and have provided factual, informed, non-partisan, and balanced analysis for media organizations including ABC, Al Jazeera America, Anderson Cooper, Bao Tuoi Tre- National Youth Magazine of Vietnam, the BBC, CNN Headline New, Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio, Canadian Broadcasting Company Television, China Central Television, Christian Science Monitor, Education Week,  Fox News, Hannity, Huffington Post,  the John Tesh Show, Larry King Live, London Times,  the LA Times,  MSNBC, NBC, NPR,  the New York Times,  Oprah,  Time Asia, Time Magazine, Tokyo Broadcasting, 20/20, Unavision, United Press International, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and hundreds of other media organizations from around the globe.

As a non-governmental, non-profit school safety center, the Safe Havens approach is dramatically different from for-profit school safety consulting firms.  The primary motivation of our analysts and our organization is making schools safer rather than revenue generation.  In fact, in maintaining our high standards, Safe Havens has declined more than five million dollars in requests for projects in 2019 and 2020.   In addition, our executive Director, Michael Dorn, has accepted only one in thirty requests to serve as an expert witness by attorneys over the past decade so that we might provide more than one million dollars in pro bono assistance for schools in developing nations, as well as to assist school districts that have experienced mass casualty tragedies.

While the practice of “upselling” services is common in the school safety industry, a key Safe Havens philosophy is to direct school and public safety officials to free resources when possible, and we are well known for referring clients to other school safety service providers when we believe that they can better serve client needs.

Our references will attest to our delivery of what we promise.  We often exceed our obligations by delivering more than required at no additional cost.  We do not attempt to create long-term dependency on our services by pushing our clients for multi-year contracts for services, and we routinely direct our clients to free resources.

Our analysts work in close collaboration with our clients to develop practical, sustainable, and effective solutions designed to create lasting and positive change.  Our analysts focus on the creation of sustainable programs for our clients through an emphasis on creating internal safety and emergency management expertise within their organization.  We emphasize a community-based approach, incorporating the skills, knowledge, and abilities of local public safety and community partners, as well as the human resources within the client’s organization.

The global experience of our analysts has proven to be helpful not only to those we have assisted overseas, but to schools and community partner agencies in the U.S. as well.  Our analysts have learned to think with a high degree of adaptability, and  to develop viable solutions in working with schools that lack power, in countries where police rent their rifles to gang members when they are off duty, and where other building codes do not exist.  We are well-versed in the latest global and national trends in school safety due to our work in over two dozen countries.   Our work in Asia, Central America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Canada, and, of course, the United States has led us to develop unique solutions that can help make schools anywhere in the world safer.

Over the past two decades, the dedicated men and women who make up Safe Havens have earned a reputation for being as passionate about school safety as our clients.  Any Safe Havens analyst will attest that while we treat our people extremely well, we demand superior client-centered, solution-oriented performance.  Our analysts have more than just impressive resumes.  They are individuals who put their heart and soul into making schools safer, more effective places for students to learn and educators to teach.