Florida Chamber of Commerce promoting safety programs amid anniversary of Parkland massacre

Named for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Eagles, the EAGLES Act calls for expanding the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) to focus more on school violence prevention.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce is working to create safer schools and workplaces as the third anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting approaches through its Florida Chamber Safety Council.

The organization created the Institute for a Safer Florida in 2019 under the Florida Chamber Safety Council in order to provide resources and trainings to ensure tragedies like the shooting in Parkland, which claimed the lives of 17 students and faculty, never happen again. 

The institute offers free active shooter training to schools, businesses and community members with the Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) course. 

The course is built on the Avoid, Deny, Defend (ADD) strategy developed by ALERRT (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training) in 2004, and provides strategies, guidance and a proven plan for surviving an active shooter event.

The approach teaches individuals to first try to avoid the threat by hiding, then create barriers to the threat and, as a last resort, to defend against a possible shooter.

The course also tackles the history and prevalence of active shooter events, civilian response options, medical issues and considerations for conducting drills.

“As we reflect on the three-year anniversary of the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the business community is uniting around making sure tragedies like this never happen in our schools or workplaces by championing best practices and solutions through the continued work of the Institute for a Safer Florida,” Mark Wilson, President and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release.

The Institute for a Safer Florida was created to help make Florida’s schools and workplaces safer by identifying and sharing best practices, providing resources and tools and advocating for public policy solutions.

The institute advocated for the March 2018 passage and signing of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which included statewide initiatives related to mental health, firearms safety, school safety and related funding.