From Stories to Solutions: A Prevention-Focused Approach to Violence Risk
This is a live VIRTUAL webinar.
* Registration open until 4/15/26 at 5:00 PM (EDT)
Presenters: Melissa Hunter, PhD; Samuel Hunter, PhD
2 Continuing Education Credits
Program Description: High-profile acts of violence are often followed by stories that attempt to explain what happened and why. While these narratives can be compelling, they rarely offer clear guidance for how clinicians, educators, and communities can prevent harm before it occurs. This training builds on existing research and explanatory frameworks to shift the focus from retrospective understanding to forward-looking prevention.
Using a developmental, contextual, and ethically grounded approach, this workshop explores how risk emerges through the interaction of individual vulnerabilities, social environments, and systemic factors. Participants will learn to recognize behavior-based warning signs without relying on stigmatizing assumptions, apply multi-tiered prevention strategies, and navigate the ethical tensions inherent in this work.
Program Learning Objectives: At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
1. Explain how descriptive and explanatory models of violent behaviors can be extended into practical, prevention-focused approaches for use in clinical, educational, and community settings.
2. Describe how risk for serious harm develops over time through the interaction of individual, social, and environmental factors, rather than being determined by diagnosis, identity, or personality alone.
3. Recognize behavior-based warning signs that may indicate increased vulnerability or need for support, while avoiding assumptions that stigmatize neurodivergent individuals or those with mental health challenges.
4. Apply developmentally informed, tiered prevention strategies (universal, targeted, and intensive) to real-world scenarios involving youth and young adults.
5. Use ethical decision-making principles to balance safety, autonomy, dignity, and inclusion when responding to concerning behaviors or situations.
Melissa Hunter, PhD is an assistant professors at the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Munroe-Meyer Institute and a licensed psychologist in MMI's Department of Psychology. Hunter received her doctorate in school psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi, completed her internship at the Munroe-Meyer Institute and her post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Child Study Center.
Hunter practiced as a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania for 15 years, providing outpatients child psychological and behavioral health services and school-based consultation for children and adults with a wide range of presenting needs. She also served as adjunct or teaching faculty at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and taught at Pennsylvania State University for nine years, where she was an associate teaching professors of psychology. Currently, Hunter provides behavioral school-based consultation to the Madonna School, a private school for children and adults with developmental disabilities. In addition, she engages in clinical activities at the Munroe-Meyer Institute. In both settings, Hunter supervises pre-doctoral psychology interns, post-doctoral fellows and undergraduate psychology students.
Samuel Hunter, PhD, Regents-Foundation Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, is an expert in leadership and innovation, exploring their positive and negative applications, and an expert in counterterrorism and prevention with an emphasis on industrial and organizational psychology. He is Director of Academic Research at the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Education, and Technology (NCITE) Center at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
His research, funded by entities like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has been featured in Fortune, Fast Company, and The Washington Post.
He has published over 120 peer-reviewed works and consulted organizations like the Johnson & Johnson, Epic Games, and Lockheed Martin. He is a fellow at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI).
Registration Options
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Registration Options
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Price |
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From Stories to Solutions - 2 CE
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$50.00 |
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From Stories to Solutions - 2 CE
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$100.00 |
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From Stories to Solutions - Non-CE
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FREE |
For More Information:
This webinar is presented by a coalition of State, Provincial, and Territorial Psychological Associations. The host for this webinar is the Nebraska Psychological Association. This program is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA). PPA is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. PPA maintains responsibility for the program and its content.