The two high school students were visibly concerned. It was lunchtime on a February day in 2022 and the boys said they needed to speak with Iowa school resource officer (SRO) Jamey Fah immediately.
The deputy with the Scott County Sheriff's Office invited them into his office, where he learned that another student might be in imminent danger. That boy had sent a private Snapchat message to a few people in which he indicated that he planned to harm himself.
Fah sprang into action, immediately checking attendance records. To his dismay, he learned that the boy was not in school that day.
The SRO contacted the boy’s parents, who were away from home, and told them he was on his way to the house. The parents had family friends meet the SRO and a patrol officer with a key. That was fortunate, because no one responded when Fah and the officer knocked.
The officers entered the house and found the boy unresponsive in his bedroom, with shallow respirations and an elevated heart rate. A bottle labeled, “hydrocodone” was nearby. A physician had prescribed the drug for the boy for a previous injury. A patrol officer administered a dose of the opioid-reversal drug naloxone that he had on his duty belt. The naloxone worked and the boy began to recover.
Fah was grateful for the time he’d invested in building positive relationships with students like the two boys who reported the Snapchat message.
“I make it my goal to engage every day with as many students as I can by being present in the hallways between classes and visiting with them during lunch,” Fah told NASRO. “At home athletic competitions, I engage with the student section.”
And Fah told NASRO about a unique way he gets to know students. The SRO had stickers made that bear a photo of his face. “For some reason, the kids love those stickers,” Fah said. But the only way to get one is to approach the SRO and personally request one.
Unfortunately, Fah had not had a chance to become familiar with the boy who attempted suicide. The SRO had no reason to believe the boy was a danger to himself.
How might things had been different without an SRO? Fah says he hopes the boys who saw the Snapchat post would have informed someone else about it. But by going directly to their SRO, they significantly reduced the time required to get help to the boy’s home.
Fah’s relationships with students have helped in other situations as well. “My response with several agencies in our community improved interactions with our students and their families,” Fah said.
Do you have a similar SRO success story? If so, contact NASRO PIO Jay Farlow, [email protected].