Behavioral Threat Assessment & Management (BTAM)

In today’s complex threat landscape, preventing workplace violence requires moving beyond reactive security to early behavioral detection and proactive intervention. Developing an internal Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) team equips your organization to identify concerning behaviors, assess violence risk through structured methodologies, and manage situations long before they escalate to a crisis. We guide organizations through every phase of building a robust, legally defensible, and multidisciplinary BTAM capability—from drafting operational policies and intake workflows to delivering role-specific training for HR, legal, security, and executive leadership.

Our tailored implementation ensures your team is prepared to navigate high-stakes scenarios, including insider threats, ideological violence, and complex personal crises. By embedding structured professional judgment into your organizational fabric, we help you foster a secure workplace culture that prioritizes safety while preserving trust and operational continuity. Whether you are establishing a threat management program from the ground up or auditing and maturing an existing team, our consultative approach builds lasting organizational resilience.

Evolving Standards

In 2011, the ANSI/ASIS/SHRM Workplace Violence Prevention and Intervention American National Standard established a structured, consensus-driven framework that transformed organizational violence prevention from ad-hoc security measures into an enterprise-wide risk management discipline. That national standard (ANSI/ASIS/SHRM WVPI.1-2011) laid the groundwork by defining organizational duty of care and formalizing the multidisciplinary approach to threat mitigation and formalized the requirement that violence prevention cannot reside solely within security, mandating collaboration among Human Resources, Legal, Security, and Behavioral Health/EAP.

The 2020 update to the standard matured these foundational practices to reflect evolving legal precedents, contemporary behavioral science, and modern organizational structures. The 2020 revisions further solidified the legal "standard of care" for employers under the OSHA General Duty Clause and tort law, providing actionable benchmarks for program audits, team competency, and policy enforcement.

ASIS and ANSI are again revising the Standard with increased attention to establishing and training a multidisciplinary threat management team. The proposed 2026 revision:

Ratifies “behavioral threat assessment & management” within a nationally / internationally applicable Standard.

Signals a process —assess and manage —rather than an attempt to predict.

Names the practitioner: an external “BTAM professional,” not a generic consultant.

Aligns the Standard with contemporary practices that are also found within Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) principles and recommendations.

Program Consultation

Initial Team Development

Behavioral Sciences Applications LLC helps organizations establish and mature Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) teams by bridging operational psychology, security protocols, and threat management best practices. We guide organizations through the end-to-end development of multidisciplinary teams—aligning human resources, legal, corporate security, and mental health stakeholders—to ensure a unified approach to early intervention.

Through specialized training programs, we equip team members to identify pre-incident indicators, distinguish between making a threat and posing a threat, and apply structured professional judgment tools for risk screening. Additionally, they assist leadership in drafting clear Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), establishing safe and confidential reporting pathways, and implementing legally defensible case management and de-escalation strategies tailored to mitigate insider threats and workplace violence.

Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM) teams require ongoing training and maintenance to ensure they are effective and can accurately assess concerning behaviors. Threat assessment is an evolving strategy, so teams must stay current on new trends and emerging risks. Opportunities to continue to learn and grow help keep team members interested and engaged, and keeping skills sharp aids in the defensibility of their processes and decisions.

Just as in medicine or law, it is advisable to ensure those responding to concerns and threats of targeted violence remain qualified to do so. It is not enough to participate in a one-time training program. Team members should consider and pursue achievable ways to acquire and maintain knowledge to ensure their level of proficiency. As with any specialty, it is incumbent on the participant to acquire ongoing training and skill development.

To help maintain and mature BTAM teams, we offer:
Annual refresher training programs
Advanced concepts program
Emerging threat briefings
Post-assessment after-actions case reviews

Maintaing & Maturing Teams

Case Consultation

Our advisors provide expert assessment of threatening behaviors and communications from current and former employees, customers, and clients, enants and neighbors, as well as as well as members of the public and anonymous authors. Our team has decades of experience and expertise in behavioral threat assessment and management to help organizations mitigate the risk of targeted violence. Every advisor is a Certified Threat Manager with the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP). We are available to assist organizations of all types and sizes with:

Threats by current or former employees
Domestic and intimate partner violence in the workplace or campus
Inappropriate, bizarre, or frightening behavior in the workplace, campus or community
Stalking and harassment
Threatening and inappropriate communications or visits
Anonymous author attribution
Bomb threats
Threats, hoaxes, and actual cases of biological, chemical, or radiological violence
Electronic threats, in emails, text messages, and posts to social media sites, such as Facebook, X, TikTok, and blogs