Handle With Care notification system expands across Tennessee to connect first responders with schools

Evie Watanabe, statewide Handle With Care coordinator at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), described rapid expansion of the program at the Resilient Tennessee Collaborative Summit and urged counties to adopt consistent reporting practices.

Handle With Care is a notification system first developed in West Virginia and now used in Tennessee to allow first responders to notify a child’s school when a child was present at an incident (for example an arrest, overdose, motor vehicle crash, fire or other emergency). Watanabe said the notification is intentionally limited — it carries only the phrase “Handle With Care,” the child’s name, school and grade — so that school staff can respond with trauma‑informed supports without receiving incident details.

Watanabe described three core supports she provides to counties: training, technical assistance and program development. She reported training more than 3,500 people in Tennessee and that statewide notifications rose from around 800–900 (excluding Metro Nashville) to more than 2,500 in roughly a year, an increase she attributed to local adoption and stronger law‑enforcement reporting.

Watanabe gave examples where simple notification changed outcomes: a coordinated‑school‑health staffer used Handle With Care alerts to review absence patterns and convince a truancy court to keep a child in school while supports were arranged. She emphasized that the program depends on local officers and deputies making the short submission and on districts being prepared to use the notice to offer supports.

Ending: Watanabe encouraged counties without full Handle With Care implementation to contact her office for training and technical assistance and said the program’s simple design helps avoid stigma while capturing children who otherwise might be overlooked.