Public schools have responsibilities not only for academic growth of students, but they are also responsible for the "whole child," considering social, emotional, and mental health development. Schools are places where identifying students who pose risk for violence is the responsibility of teachers, students themselves, counselors, and other caring school personnel. As a result of the increase in threat assessments in "Ruthenton" County Schools (RCS) (confidential name), the district established the RCS Mental Health Advisory Council to engage in building a threat assessment process that was connected to an overall comprehensive mental health and school safety model directly tied to the tiered system of supports delivered through a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). In addition to the RCS Mental Health Advisory Team, a subcommittee team was developed to specifically implement the design thinking process to enhance threat assessment practices, procedures, and guidelines within the district. The purpose of the current study was to inform RCS of areas of improvement in the existing threat assessment process. Using a documents analysis approach, the research employed findings from this qualitative study to inform a model threat assessment protocol and training that describes an updated and improved threat assessment process. After review of the 253 threat assessments using the threat assessment monitoring rubric, the research study revealed strengths and areas of improvement of the threat assessment process. The overall average of the seven steps combined gleaned from the data collection using the threat assessment monitoring rubric was 31.63 out of the possible 72 points with no specific step reaching a full 100% compliance. Strengths of the process included the use of a multi-disciplinary team, initial report of threat made on the protocol, threat level determination, and notifications following the central office process. Overall, gaps included form completion, consistent data collection, appropriate use of threat inquiry and use of secret service questions, threat determination and justification, notification and information sharing, and safety and intervention planning. Based on the results of this study, a newly developed threat assessment protocol, a rubric to monitor threat assessments, and a training module, were developed after revealing gaps in the previous threat assessment protocol. This study has significant implications for threat assessment practices as results revealed that teams need an appropriately intense response regardless of the level of threat. The completion of the threat assessment process with fidelity as assessed by the rubric is the way to ensure that threat assessment teams do not miss students that may potentially "pose a threat." Multi-disciplinary teams' intensity of the threat assessment data collection process should and shall not vary regardless of the assigned threat level. By improving the threat assessment protocol and monitoring practices, RCS will work toward meeting the challenge of a 100% success rate in violence prevention (Kanan, Nicoletti, Garrido, & Dvoskina, 2016). Solving this problem of practice may also provide other school districts with resources to design their own model of a comprehensive threat assessment process. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]