Student Self-Harm & Suicide Rates Show A Disturbing Upward Trend
Rates of self-harm and suicide among children and teens are on the rise. Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death among adolescents. While students who self-harm don’t always attempt suicide, they are up to 3.5 times more likely to.
The journey to self-harming and suicidal behavior does not happen all at once. Students often leave clues about their thoughts and actions online. Activity that indicates self-harm and thoughts of suicide include internet searches, social media activity. Students also often write about their thoughts and intentions in documents and emails. And they upload images to cloud-based drives, like Google Drive, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
As schools increasingly use Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for class, students are becoming more accustomed to using them as both school and personal spaces. When self-harm and/or suicidal ideation behavior is taking place on school accounts, districts have a responsibility to act on it. Many put processes in place to alert school counselors and/or building officials to ensure students get the support they need.
Student Self-Harm Monitoring Resources for K-12 Safety Teams
“When I first learned about Cloud Monitor I was skeptical that such an inexpensive solution would be able to secure our Google Workspace data better than Cloudlock. However, after our first week using the solution, I was more than convinced. Cloud Monitor has been one of the best technology decisions I’ve made this year.”
“The addition of Cloud Monitor to our IT infrastructure allows me and my team to feel confident about protecting our students and staff when using Google Workspace. The dashboard and alerts provide me real-time info so that I can take immediate action to thwart any threats.”
“Cloud Monitor provided us a level of visibility we needed to ensure the security and safety of our students and staff. The solution was quick to deploy and gave us immediate insights.”
Uses artificial intelligence to monitor district Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 emails, files, shared drives, and chat apps to detect self-harm red flags in text and image content
Today’s digital native students find comfort in online environments and often express themselves more freely than when talking with an adult. They are increasingly using school apps like Google Docs and email to express their feelings, much like a digital diary. Signals help administrators detect when a student is in crisis by monitoring district Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 accounts for distress signals.
When it comes to student safety, time is of the essence. Signals send alerts to designated administrators in real-time. Notifications include all the information needed to understand the incident, allowing for quick response to the student in crisis.
School officials and parents are raising concerns about cyber safety programs and their impact on student data privacy and surveillance. Student data privacy is central to everything we do. Signals don’t collect or store any student information, nor does it build profiles on student activity.
Learn how Justin Feltus, System Specialist at Bremerton School District, is using Signals by ManagedMethods to detect student self-harm and other safety signals in Google Workspace
Cloud Monitor is the leading provider of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 data security for K-12 school districts and is committed to keeping district and student data private and secure