What is a Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT)?
This is a multi-disciplinary team of university faculty and staff whose purpose is to support students’ mental health and emotional well-being by detecting patterns, trends, and disturbances in individual or group behavior. Because all people experience stress, BIT is particularly concerned when students are unable to respond or manage distress in healthy and constructive ways. If the experience of personal challenges and difficulties begins to systematically interfere with a student’s functioning or leads the student to behave in ways that are inconsistent with community standards or conventional social or interpersonal behaviors the BIT is prepared to intervene. After receiving a report of concerning behavior, we investigate, perform a risk assessment, and determine the best mechanisms for support, intervention, warning/notification, and response.
The Behavioral Intervention Team is different from the Threat Assessment team. Student behavior that poses a threat of targeted violence or disruption of public order and safety are addressed by threat assessment. A report of concerning behavior can escalate to a threat of violence, and two members of the Behavioral Intervention Team also serve on the Threat Assessment Team to create seamless transition of such cases.
Learn more about BIT at https://www.nabita.org/.