The Association was started by like-minded individuals passionate about preventing targeted violence. The founder board members, took the initiative to set the ball rolling  on 30 July 2019 and a meeting was held, attended by 79 individuals across industries such as corporate security, academics in psychology and criminology, practitioners from the National Prosecuting Authority, the South African Police Service, private practitioners of psychology, the education environment and more. At this meeting the attendees gave the mandate for the board to proceed and take the necessary steps to set up a non-profit organisation.

AFATAP, affectionately called “Aftap” will host its first annual conference in November 2020, and open up memberships before then so voting for the first board can take place. Threat assessment and management is the evidence-based profession aimed at helping people identify warning signs that someone is on the pathway to targeted violence towards another person or organisation, and then developing a strategy to prevent that violence from taking place.

The main areas of threat assessment are domestic violence, stalking, workplace violence, violence in the educational setting and terrorism. AfATAP is one of five sister associations, all independent but sharing a common view and purpose. These organisations include ATAP in the US, APATAP in the Asia-Pacific region, CATAP in Canada, and AETAP in Europe.