CARE Team

Violence-Free Workplace

County College of Morris is a violence-free workplace. The College does not tolerate acts or threats of violence performed by or against staff, faculty, students, visitors, or other third parties on College-owned, controlled, or leased properties or in connection with College events or programs. As outlined in CCM’s Employee Code of Conduct and the Student Code of Conduct, all useful management strategies will be used to identify and prevent incidents of campus violence in order to reduce the effects of violence or the threat of violence, whether self-directed or aimed at others, and to address and respond to those who threaten or perpetrate violence.

Goals and Guiding Principles

The County College of Morris CARE Team supports the comprehensive violence prevention strategies of the College by:

• Serving as a central point of contact for receiving community concerns regarding threatening or concerning behavior.
• Conducting threat assessment and implementing intervention
• Assessing the type of threat and level of risk; and
• Providing educational programming to the College community relative to identifying and reporting threatening and concerning behavior.

Guiding Principles

• The safety of individuals and the County College of Morris community is the primary focus of the Care Team and a shared goal of all members of the community.
• The team is not a substitute for emergency response to an active or imminent threat to the safety of the College community. Emergencies should be reported by calling 9-1-1.
• Communication, coordination of resources, and timely response are critical to team
• A fact-based, analytical approach utilizing best practices will guide the decision-making process of the
• The team will establish or utilize existing collaborative relationships with local, state, and federal law enforcement and other local and institutional resources as necessary to expedite assessment and intervention with individuals whose behaviors may present a threat.
• The team will treat all people fairly, with dignity and
• The team will address and manage impact to individuals, groups, and the community.

Team Members

The CARE Team is a multi-disciplinary team composed of individuals from departments across the College. The core team meets regularly during the calendar year for case and policy review. The team also meets as needed to address situations that may require immediate attention.Representatives from the departments below constitute the core CARE Team:

• Dean of Students Office
• Public Safety
• Counseling and Wellness Center
• Accessibility Services
• Human Resources (as needed)

Occasionally, there is a need to enlist additional subject matter experts to participate in CARE related matters. Many of those enlisted serve in direct support of students throughout County College of Morris. The list below provides examples of additional departments that may be called upon to serve as part of the CARE Team. The list is not exhaustive.

• Faculty
• Marketing
• The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• The Academic Success Center
• Campus Life
• Athletics
• Plant and Maintenance

For additional details regarding the CARE’s make-up as well as team member roles and responsibilities, see Appendix A below.

Reporting Concerns

Members of the County College of Morris community, including faculty, staff, and students, are expected to report concerning and threatening behavior immediately. Community responsibility and engagement in the reporting process enhances campus safety and the ability to effectively respond to potentially dangerous situations.Community members should report violent, potentially violent, and threatening behavior by completing the anonymous Public Safety Online Confidential Reporting System or by contacting one or more of the following individuals or offices:

• one’s CCM supervisor, or
• the CARE Team, by contacting CCM Dean of Students, Director of Public Safety, or Associate Director of Public Safety (see “Contacts” section below for additional information).

County College of Morris prohibits filing knowingly false claims or information. 

To report an emergency that requires immediate attention, Call 9-1-1.

Non-emergency related concerns can be reported by contacting the Public Safety Office (973-328-5550)

Community members who have a protective order or restraining order that would cover them on campus are strongly encouraged to provide a copy of the order to County College of Morris Public Safety Department (see “Contacts” section below for additional information).

Prohibited Behaviors

Prohibited acts of campus violence include, but are not limited to, the following acts, when occurring on campus or potentially affecting a member of the campus community while they are on campus (see definition of “on campus” above):

Prohibited acts of on-campus* violence include, but are not limited to, the following acts:

• destroying, damaging, defacing, or vandalizing campus or personal
• engaging in any action (or threat of action) that endangers or threatens to endanger the health, safety, or wellbeing of any person (including oneself).
• stalking (as defined in County College of Morris’s Policy on Sexual Misconduct);
• dating/domestic violence (as defined in CCM’s Policy on Sexual Misconduct); or
• engaging in other violent or threatening

*or actions that affect campus community members

Violent or threatening behavior may consist of physical acts, oral or written statements, harassing email messages, harassing telephone calls, gestures, or other behaviors that a person would reasonably perceive to be threatening to either the physical or psychological well-being of the individual. Such behavior includes self-directed as well as other-directed violence or threat of violence.

Threats are unacceptable regardless of whether the person communicating the threat can carry them out, whether the threat is made on a present, conditional, or future basis, or whether the threat is made in person, through another person, in writing, over the phone, in the mail, or electronically.

Identifying Concerning Behaviors

The following example of behavior may indicate that a person may be distressed and of concern to the campus community. The behaviors listed below are not an exhaustive list.

• Exhibiting behavior that can reasonably be interpreted as threatening to self or
• Explicitly making a threat of violence to another
• Exhibiting highly disruptive behavior, including hostile, aggressive, bullying, intimidating, and/or violent behaviors.
• Being cited, arrested for, or under investigation for a violent or threatening
• Continuing to pursue options that do not reasonably exist after being instructed to cease (e,g., a student continues to pursue a grading complaint after being informed that all administrative procedures have been exhausted, or a staff member persists in pursuing a reversal of a sanction after exhausting the established appeal process).
• A member of the campus community expressing concern for the member’s own personal safety.

Retaliation

The College’s policy on non-retaliation can be found in the CCM Employee Code of Conduct which prohibits retaliation against any member of the County College of Morris  community for registering, in good faith, a concern with the CARE team; assisting another in registering a concern; or participating in a CARE assessment process. Community members may report evidence of suspected retaliation by contacting any of the individuals or offices listed in the policy, or by submitting a report through the Public Safety Online Confidential Reporting System for confidential reporting of suspected misconduct.

Confidentiality

Reports of threatening behavior made to the CARE Team will be handled as discreetly as possible, with facts made available on a need-to-know basis to assess and properly intervene in the matter. Please note, however, that disclosure of threatening behavior may be necessary to protect the health and safety of the County College of Morris community, or as otherwise required by law.Information may be provided to emergency response personnel, police, parents and caretakers, third party forensic assessment organizations, or, in extreme circumstances, the entire County College of Morris community, among others.